Surviving Paradise (Full Draft Version)

CHAPTER 26

"Could we skip the getting to know you crap?!"

"Well we could Willy boy but I think your friend is trying to save your life."

CHAPTER 26

Coincidentally, that night, Ashton called her while she was still at work, asking if she was alone. Sayer had just come in from his evening rounds, and Allisa answered that she could be, knowing that there were many places of privacy where she and Ashton could talk. Worrying and wondering what was up, she waited nervously for his arrival.

As she let him into the lab, she hated that lately she had begun to be uneasy anytime Ashton wanted to talk to her. Too often now, he was the link to the vampire world, instead of Ashton the mentor and friend.

She sat on the corner of the desk after he refused her offer of bagged nourishment, and eyed him as he began. He seemed unsure, although as usual there was not even a twitch to betray emotion.

“The other day, your laptop was on the table, I guess you were going to come back for it after...” When Ashton dwindled off, obviously thinking the better of bringing up Monday and her meeting with Gabrielle, which had instead been a nightmarish courtroom drama, Allisa nodded. “Well, Jane had taken hers to work, I usually use hers.” Allisa nodded again. Ashton had no real interest in computers other than a means to anything he needed, which was almost always ordering music supplies or downloading music. “And Will was still asleep and yours was just sitting there.”

“Okay,” Allisa agreed. “You borrowed it, so what’s up.”

“Since I was on it anyway, I looked up my files-my research and medical stuff.”

“Okay.” Allisa shrugged and guessed. “Questions on something?”

“Yeah. The pill, it’s not doing what you expected, right?”

If Allisa had been a vampire, the pen she was holding would have snapped. Meeting his eyes with startled ones she said, “You figured this out from your file?”

“From the notes, and from remembering how your pulse was going like a rabbit on crack, that day in Gabrielle’s office when she was asking you stuff about your research.” He watched her with sympathy and finished softly, “Just like it is now...”

“The pill is complicated, some things are going on that we did not expect, but we isolated the problem.”

“Maybe I should just tell you what I think is going on, and tell you what I am hoping you can do.”

When Ashton was done with his theory which was spot on, Allisa made a mental note to password protect her files. What if a vampire other than Ashton had acquired the information?! And when Ashton told her what he wanted, she was shocked.

Obviously, Ashton had read and understood thoroughly how one of the molecules in the pill had begun acting as a free radical, that even as the disease was being cured, the other cells were being broken down as well. And what he wanted was for her, in his case, to pursue this avenue of research and refine it, rather than fix it. In short, what he wanted was mortality, or as close as she could bring him to the state.

“I can’t do that...” Allisa denied. Even as she understood and admired his genius plan, there were far too many obstacles.

“You could try...” Ashton sat on the other corner of the desk, bringing himself to her level as he earnestly pleaded his case. “Jane and I could have a life together.”

“But you can anyway...”

Yet in her head, Allisa heard her own arguments, the ones she had voiced aloud, and the ones she had not, to her friend earlier that day. If she adjusted the dose in the pill, could Ashton actually grow old and live out a normal cycle of life? And did Ashton know what he was giving up–the knowledge and experience that came from living centuries. And would Gabrielle even allow a vampire to make this choice. The more good vampires there were, the better they could protect their own, as well as humans from the evil ones.