Chapter 13

When Leon got up the next morning he felt a mixture of emotions. He was excited to spend time with Violet, he would always be excited to spend time with her. As he buttoned his shirt he found himself feeling a bit melancholy as he also realized that at the end of this day she would be leaving, and they still hadn't made any plans for when they would. As he brushed through his hair, that was still much too short for his liking, he decided that before she left he would tell her how he felt. He found himself mumbling to the mirror. "Violet, I love you. I realized it the moment you saw the comet's tail grow—" He shook his head and decided he would try to not over think the moment before it happened.

When they got to the hospital they sat in comfortable waiting room. Leon looked around, just two other patients waiting to be seen. "This doctor is one of the best in the country. Fern's family has known him for a really long time. He specializes in broken bones, he even helped develop the new prosthetics, like the ones you have." He was nervous and excited, if he had use of both thumbs he would be twiddling his thumbs. The cast was finally coming off, and he was spending an entire day with her, not working.

Violet looked at him very seriously. "Did you need to get prosthetics?"

"No. I'm very lucky to not, in fact, I'm pretty sure if this guy hadn't been my doctor I probably would have for my leg." He took a deep breath and kept telling himself to calm down.

A door that leads to several private rooms and offices opens and a nurse leans against the open door with a chart in her hands. "Leon. Are you ready to get that hand back or what?" She asks in a friendly tone. Violet was finding it surprising and somewhat refreshing that it seemed like Leon makes friends everywhere he goes now… so unlike the boy she met at the observatory that could hardly make friends with people he had known for years.

When Violet stood with him he laughed a little before turning towards her. "Would you mind waiting out here? I've been told it can be a little— gross— when they open it up. What with all the sweat and dead skin…"

Violet lifted an eyebrow. "I'm positive that I have seen and smelled worse."

He nervously laughs again. "I know… It's more about my embarrassment than your senses."

She nods in understanding before sitting back down and watching as he follows the nurse.

As soon as the door closes the nurse turns to him. "How long have the two of you been together?"

He let out a nervous "ha" before taking a deep breath. "Hopefully starting today."

Back out in the waiting room Violet listens to the ticking of the clock hung just about the receptionist desk that Leon checked in at. She listens and listens until her mind drifts to memories of that almost kiss the night before and she wondered why he hadn't tried again. Why didn't he lean back in when Fern and Calla walked away? Or in the car ride back? Or at the house? She wondered if maybe it had just been in her head that he wanted to kiss her, maybe it had been more her leaning in than she initially thought. All morning he has been acting strange, and more nervous than before and she wondered if that meant he didn't feel for her the same way she thought she might.

As Violet sat there in the waiting area drowning in these worries about Leon's feelings towards her the door that he had gone through opened and it pulled her attention away from her thoughts. She thought that a lot more time had passed, so her expectation was to see Leon there with his right hand finally free again. When she saw Gilbert Bougainvillea standing there looking just as shocked as herself, she wondered if her brain snapped. She immediately stood, and the urge to salute quickly faded as she realized that he was not a hallucination like the ones she had had before, but that he was definitely real as the nurse asked if he would like to make a follow up appointment and she heard his voice for the first time in over three years. "No thank you." He said to the nurse with his emerald green eye still glued to Violet.

Violet didn't dare take her eyes off of him as she spoke to the nurse behind the desk. "When Leon Stephanotis gets out of his appointment can you tell him that Violet went to sit in the courtyard here at the hospital?" The nurse was fascinated by the tension in the air between the patient she knew as Gilbert Bougainvillea and this woman she had never seen before as she agreed to pass the message along to Leon.

She walked up to him, wishing she could feel with her hands as she resisted the urge to touch his face. Her words came out just above a whisper, an angry whisper as she already knew the answer to her question but couldn't think of what exactly to say. "It's really you, right?"

"Violet…" Gilbert's face drops. All of his careful planning to stay away from her undone in one second.

When she walked away he followed. He briefly thought about trying to disappear again, but what good would that do now that she knows he's alive. If he disappears now she will never stop searching.

The hospital's small garden courtyard is in the center of the two story building. With luscious greenery, you can enter from all four sides and the walls surrounding it are all glass so people walking through the hospital, staff and patients, can see. No one else was out there though, no one but Violet sat on the iron bench and Gilbert standing behind that bench.

"Why?" She asks in a controlled anger as she rests her metal hands on her knees and looks straight ahead so she can see his reflection in the glass as he winces and cringes before responding.

"I didn't want you to be tied down by me anymore. I want you to[—"

"Live and be free. I know. I figured that part out on my own."She stood and turned to face him as she interrupted. "Why did you let me believe, no, why did you make everyone else try to make me believe that you were dead? Why couldn't I learn how to live and be free with you? Why couldn't I learn what it meant with you?!" Tears had already started to form before she interrupted him, but she held them back.

"Violet—" tears were starting to form in his eye while she bombarded him with her questions and as he spoke her name the first tear dropped. "It was the only thing I could think of doing for you that could begin to pay you back."

"Pay me back for what? What did I do to you that was so horrible? To repay me for all the lives I took? You didn't think I would burn enough for that? I have! I am!"

"No! God no. Violet please. Let's sit down and I will do my best to explain." He kept his voice level and calm, the way one would when talking to an angry cat.

"No. I don't want to sit." She took a deep breath. "I will listen though."

He sighed as a small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "You really have changed haven't you? I'm glad. Glad you didn't just obey my somewhat of an order. The old you would have done whatever I asked, without question— I hated that. It wasn't until you defied my order to stay put and charge into the battle to keep me safe that I started…" He stopped himself. "Making you believe I died that night seemed like the only way to make you see yourself the way I do."

Violet felt a little calmer, although her heart is still beating at an uncomfortable pace. "Free." She whispers.

He smiles at the fact that she gets it and just as he does he coughs. It was such a shock he didn't have time to grab the handkerchief he'd started to use, and so he coughed directly into his hand again. When he pulled his hand away Violet didn't need to see the speckles of blood on his palm because there was some on his bottom lip.

"You're sick…" Her eyes go wide as she approaches him again, his familiar scent felt instantly comforting to her.

His green eye turns away from her as he speaks. "Very."

Violet reaches out one of her gloved metal hands to cup Gilbert's cheek, which makes him look back at her, finally meeting her cerulean eyes that he had been dreaming of for the last three and half years.

Meanwhile, after his cast was off and the doctor checked that he could twist and turn it in every which way without too much discomfort, Leon made sure to wash and scrub as much of the smell and the dead skin off as he could. He was told it could be a couple days for it all to come off.

When he exited and saw that Violet was no longer in the waiting area he asked the nurse at the front desk if she had seen where the beautiful blonde woman he came with went and she responded with a funny smile. "Oh yes. She went to the courtyard with Mr. Bougainvillea, it looked very intense."

The blood rushed from Leon's face and he tried to swallow before he spoke. "Bougainvillea— which Bougainvillea?"

The nurse bit her lip. "I'm not really sure I can share that information—"

"Fine!" He tried not to yell, really he did, but his heart had started to race. "Can you tell me if it's Gilbert Bougainvillea?"

The nurse nodded her head as she spoke. "That's the one!" She smiled until she watched as Leon went to run, forgetting that his right leg was still healing, and fell to the ground. After the nurses rushed to him they check to make sure nothing has been injured, or re-injured, which he protested the whole time telling them he was fine and needed to hurry. They helped him to his feet, kindly scolded him for trying to run on a broken leg and sent him on his way.

It was the fastest he had moved since the avalanche. He really didn't know what he was going to find when he came upon Violet and the man she had been in love with for so many years reunited in the garden courtyard. When he saw her hand cupping his cheek and the way they were looking at each other, every beat of his racing heart felt like it was beating against glass and shattering it to pieces.