~ Chapter 49: Break ten plates in a row. ~

Today it's been a month that Damon is in the hospital. He's feeling ok most of the time and wished we could do things from the Bucket List instead of staying inside this stupid hospital room but the doctors haven't allowed him to go and he knows it so we spend time either talking, listening to music and dancing on it, or watching things on the computer. Kara has come visit him, and so have his best friends Mathew and Jeremy. His parents never left and come by very often, almost as much as me. Seth and Jenny come visit him too, and my parents came in town because Seth called me. He knew that I needed them without me even talking about it so he asked them to come and they learned the news. No need to say it was a shock to them but it explained a lot of things on why I had dropped out of college, visited many countries or done weird things like dog sledding.

On the last day of the first month, we were in the hospital room with Jenny and Seth when a nurse came inside. It was routine to us, to see a doctor, a nurse or just any employee of the hospital come in to check in on Damon, or change his IV or whatever else. It became so natural we didn't even interrupt our activity of the day to let them do it and they knew us by now. A young doctor had even tried to hit on Jenny but Seth had given him one glance and it had sufficed for him to go disappear and never come by again. It made us laugh a lot.

"Hey guys, how are you all doing today?" The nurse, Anita, asked us before taking the sheet of paper stuck to Damon's bed.

"Good." We all answered.

Anita was our favorite nurse. She was kind and always talked to us about your favorite TV shows. Besides, she always did everything she could to smile even when she was bringing bad news like visit times were over for example.

"Have you watched the season finale of The Originals?" She inquired, changing the bag of fluid branched to Damon.

We discussed it with her then she glanced towards the notebook on the bed table next to Damon.

"What's this?" She asked.

She took it in her hands.

"Damon's bucket list." I answered.

"Can I look?"

"Yes, go ahead." Damon smiled at her.

She flipped it open and read all the things on it, smiling sometimes at some of them.

"You guys are dirty minded." She said, reading all the places Damon wanted to make love at.

We laughed.

"Oh, so that's where the map comes from?" She guessed, looking at the big map still pinned on the wall.

"Yeah, it's all the places we traveled to." I explained.

"That is so cool!" She read some more of it then closed it. "Ok guys, I have an idea."

I saw Damon raise an eyebrow, intrigued and I raised my eyes to her.

"I could break you out of the hospital for one day so that you can break ten plates in a row because it sounds fun and you must be going out of your mind staying inside all day. I would come with you, obviously, and so would Jorje. Doctor Suarez." She corrected. "It would just be for one afternoon though, no more than that."

"Oh my god, could we actually do that?" I asked, getting really hopeful and excited.

"I'll have to talk to Jorje first."

"Please go do that." Damon begged her. "I'm going insane in here and I feel particularly good today. No headache, no nausea, nothing."

"I'll go talk to him now, stay put."

She exited the room and I looked at Damon, excited. I really, really wanted him to come home, even if it was just for one day. His presence was missing in the house and I had learnt to hate my bed when he wasn't in it next to me. Anita came back with the biggest smile I had seen on her.

"Doctor Suarez is ok with it if we both go with you, he doesn't have major surgery today so he said ok. Ready to go home for a day Damon?"

"Oh my god yes!!! Thank you so much Anita!!" He exclaimed.

He wanted to hug her but was still branched to a bunch of things so she bent down to hug him. She started prepping him, saying he would have to take this or that with him, and an hour later, we were all in the ambulance rolling towards our house.

"I feel like a prisoner who's just been freed." Damon said, smiling.

We arrived home soon enough and opened the door of the ambulance. They made Damon's wheelchair roll out of it and Anita pushed him to the door. I opened it and let him in. He looked all around, smiling like a kid on Christmas, and I couldn't have been happier. He had to carry his bag of fluid linked to his arm and another machine and, for some strange reason, they didn't want him to walk too much so they had him in a wheelchair. We had just danced yesterday to music but I didn't want to discuss it. Damon was home for an afternoon and that was all that mattered. Jenny and Seth left us alone and Anita and the doctor went in another room.

"I'm so happy to be here." Damon said.

"Me too. Now come on, let's do a last thing on the list and break ten plates in a row. I'm sure it will feel good and that's one of the only things we can do without having to travel some place."

"Go get my plates then. They won't be of any use anyway and Jenny and you need yours."

"Right. I'll be right back."

I almost ran to his house, took the plates with me, more than necessary I think but it didn't matter, and went back to the kitchen. Damon was standing on his feet, looking at some photos.

"Let's break plates!" I exclaimed, putting them down on the counter.

We took one each and threw them to the opposite wall, the one very far away from us to be sure we wouldn't hurt anyone. It broke into a lot of little pieces and Damon's grin grew wider. So did mine.

"Oh my God! This is so satisfying!"

Damon laughed and threw another plate.

"I love this!"

I threw another one too, then we threw one together, laughing like maniacs.  I felt like all of my anger caused by the unfairness of the situation Damon was in got bottled up and I could just throw it at the wall to break free from it. No need to say I was feeling much better after that and I think Damon felt the same. When we had broken all the plates, a big pile of broken glass was on the floor and we were both a little out of breath.

"God I had missed being home!" Damon exclaimed, sitting down on one of the chairs.

"You know, there's something else we can do that's on the list that doesn't require traveling." I said, getting a little closer to him.

"I feel like this is going to be something good."

"Oh, you have no idea."

I rolled him out of the kitchen and warned Anita we were going in the house next door but begged her not to disturb us. I think she understood it was in her best interest not to because she promised. I took Damon to his house and stopped into his own kitchen.

"Oooh, now I see what you had in mind."

And so we ticked something else on the list: Make love on the kitchen floor.

"I love you Leah." Damon whispered as he was holding me in his arms.

We were still in the kitchen but had dressed back up.

"I love you too."

"I'm totally going to ruin the mood but here goes: I don't know if it was our last time doing this, I don't know how many more time I have left to tell you I love you but I need you to know that I do."

"I know you do Damon."

"That being said... I don't expect you to stay single for the rest of your life Leah."

"Damon..."

I so did not want to have this conversation!

"No, hear me out, please. I want you to be happy. That's all I want, that's my dying wish and that's what I'd ask the genies if I had a wish to make before dying. I just want you to be happy Leah. You're going to have to move on and I want you to know that's it's ok. If you fall in love with someone else, it's ok. If you marry, legally this time, someone else, it's ok. And if you have children with this someone else, it's more than ok too. If I can still have feelings as a ghost or whatever then I'll be happy for you. You are the most amazing person in the world and you deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way. Don't turn it down because you feel bad about falling for someone else. Please."

I looked up at him and plunged my eyes in his grey ones. I could see he was honest and serious about this.

"I just want you to be happy." Damon repeated, before bending his head a little to kiss me.

My heart was beating faster than ever because of his words. I knew he meant them but I also knew that it must have been hard for him to say them out loud. It would have been the hardest thing for me to say to him if roles had been reversed. I would have wanted to be his only love forever but I guess I would have stopped being a selfish bitch and tried to tell him the things he had just said to me now.

The thing is, I couldn't bring myself to even think about even having a crush for someone else. I didn't want anyone else, I just wanted Damon. I knew I would have to move on at some point and get out of my room and maybe even date someone new but I didn't want to think about it before I would absolutely have to. For now, Damon was still here, had just made love to me, and he was the only one I wanted.

"We should probably go back there with Anita and Doc Suarez or they will barge in and find the mess on the floor." Damon said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah."

Damon sat back in his wheelchair just to pretend he had stayed in it, although he hadn't even sat in it since I had brought him in his house. Well, it wasn't like he could get worse anyway. Like all teenager would have said in 2013: YOLO was the word. Forgive me for that, my mind was kind of messed up at this point, you have to understand, my boyfriend was freaking dying and I had not had a good night sleep in the past month.

"I can see you're over thinking something." Damon stated. "Is it about what I said?"

"Kind of. I don't want to talk about it, let's just enjoy you being home ok?"

"Yeah. We still have an hour or two I think."

We went inside my house and found Anita and Doc Suarez laughing with each other, but it seemed like something more. Were they... flirting? Well, I could only hope things would work out for them, they were both great people and seemed to get along.

Damon and I went up in my room, ditching the wheelchair in the living room. He took a little tour of it, smiling. He took my teddy bear in his hands.

"Is it what you found to replace me at night?" He asked, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Nah, I just hug my pillow. Jenny had offered to buy me one of those inflatable dolls but I refused. Too creepy."

He laughed and put the teddy bear back on the bed.

"So, have you been writing more?" He inquired, sitting down.

I sat next to him and lay my head on his shoulder.

"No. I'm not in the mood. I'm either too sad or too tired."

"That sucks. I hope you'll write more soon, I know how much you love it and I'm sure you're talented."

"You wouldn't know, you just say that to make me smile and kiss you."

"I don't need to say that for you to kiss me, I just have to take off my shirt." He smiled.

"True."

We stayed on my bed for the following hour, just talking and laughing, teasing each other like we always did and him reminding me that he loved me another time. Then Anita came knocking and said Damon had to go back to the hospital. I hugged him for long minutes, just enjoying hearing his calming breaths and his familiar and delicious scent, then he kissed me like it was going to be the last time and went down the stairs with Anita. I crawled in my bed and I wanted to cry but I didn't. Instead, I took a notebook and a pen and started writing for the first time in weeks and it felt good and relaxing. Damon was right, I really loved it. It felt weird not to write on my computer but since Damon had it, I had no choice but to do it the old fashion way and I did not dislike it at all. Ideas came to me and so I stayed up all night to write the end of my book, feeling this strange sense of everything coming together.

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(A/N: Thank you to @Baby_Doll29 for the beautiful cover! :D)