Chapter 7

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P.S. I love all the reviews I'm getting! (I really don't care if they are positive or negative… the negative ones will make me a better writer and the positive ones make me want to write more) You guys are great, keep reading!

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Amy POV

My eyes fluttered open to see a very worried Ian pacing back and forth carving a path in one of our priceless rugs. He was moving every muscle, unable to keep still. His movements were from across the room by Fiske's desk, past the couch I was laying on in the center of the office to the door. Whenever he would pass, his hand would brush across my forehead, wrist, or forearm. I could tell he wanted contact, but he was to antsy to stay still, so his pacing continued at a hurried pace, as if the faster he moved the faster I would get better. When he got close enough I reached my hand out and stopped him. "Oh thank God you're okay." He rushed to kneel by my side, taking my hands gently in his, to reassure himself I was there, "I was so worried. I was almost too late. He could have gotten you. I don't know what I would have done " he started rambling, his breathing was rushed.

"Shh, its okay," I interrupted him, freeing my hands so I could stroke his face, "I'm fine, you're fine, we are both going to be fine, take a deep breath." I said to calm him down. We stared into each other's eyes, mine mesmerized by the depth of his soul and how he cared so deeply about me, I'm not sure what he saw in my eyes but they seemed to bring him peace. I caressed temple to jaw, as his breathing evened out and his worry faded so it wasn't as apparent on his face. "See everything is fine."

Seeing that he was mostly calm, I moved my hand from his face to help me sit up. I barely was propped up on an elbow when I was met with a searing pain in my ribs and stomach, and a piercing headache. I winced in response to the sting and Ian almost started to hyperventilate. He tried to gently push me down into a laying position but I stubbornly continued to get into a sitting position. The angry throbbing worsened but I didn't want to give Ian a heart attack so I masked it. "Ian, come on, I have had worse, come just sit next to me." He rose from his knees and cautiously came to sit next to me careful to not touch me anywhere. He was too fearful that he would hurt me more." The injuries will heal in no time. Nothing is broken, and I haven't lost much blood, please just don't worry about me."

We sat in awkward silence until I scooted closer to him and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you saving me." I said in a quiet voice.

That loosened him up, Ian hugged me closer, still not tightly, and "You had me really scared." He whispered in my ear.

"I'm sorry." I burrowed my head into his shoulder. I soon fell asleep in his embrace. Only remembering his lips lightly touching my eyelids. Because of Ian I was able to get a good night of sleep. Well as good as you can get when you are attacked in the middle of the night.

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I woke up very warm and comfortable in my room. My room? How did I get here? I started to sit up but two arms securely wrapped around my shoulders stopped me. Even in his sleep Ian was ever so cautious of the injuries on my midsection. I smiled and sunk deeper into my love's embrace. I lay blissfully for not long enough when I heard my brother at my door. I quietly woke Ian up, he grumbled about how he didn't want to let me go, until I told him that Dan was at my door. He shot up quickly aggravating one of my wounds. I hissed at the pain, but luckily he didn't notice, (or he probably would never come near me ever again). Ian raced to my closet and disappeared into the secret passage way.

"Amy?" Dan called "Amy, Nellie told me to wake you up, it's time for breakfast."

"Alright I'll be down in a minute." Hollered back at him. I placed my feet on the floor carefully, aware of the severely bruised ankle. I walked slowly to my closest gauging my pain. I assessed it could be a lot worse and I could walk without showing I was injured. This is good, no need in explaining unexplainable things. Hurriedly I got dressed and pulled my hair into a messy bun, noticing a bruise but not really caring.

I ventured downstairs toward the scent of crepes, Nellie was in French mode. In the kitchen I heard friendly conversations between everyone. Ham and Dan were laughing at some practical joke they were planning, Natalie and Sinead were discussing scientific stuff, and Fiske, Nellie and Ian were talking missions, everything seem normal but there were clues hinting that today was very abnormal. When Ham saw me he sent me a sympathetic look, Fiske checked to make sure I was okay, and Ian quickly looked me over, assessing how I was feeling worry written all over his face, and then gave me a very quick loving look.

'I'm fine, Ian'

'I know but you can't blame me for double checking, Love.'

'Thanks for worrying.'

"Amy, I got major dirt on Ian!" Dan yelled across the room, and without hesitation jumped into his story about all the embarrassing things they found in Ian's room. "Oh it was great." Dan sighed, "You should've been there." He could not add anything else for he was consumed by laughter.

The day continued as they normally, Dan making a fool out of himself, Madison and Regan bickering over the smallest things, and Natalie living as "poor commoner". (Her words not mine, I mean she has two million dollars at her dispense.) Although everything seemed normal on the surface, there was a tangible sense of worry coming off of Ian, Ham, and Fiske. Whenever I would show and sign of discomfort from my injuries, Ian's eyes would find me, even if we weren't in the same room, somehow he would end up in the same area as me ready to ease and aches and pains. And as Ian's eyes filled with concern, mine would meet his with reassurance that I was all right.

In the late afternoon, I was fed up with the concerned looks from Ian, Ham, and Fiske, so I found Sinead working diligently in one of the labs. "Hey Amy, what brings you here?" she asks cheerfully.

"Umm, it's something that is kind of hard to explain. So I guess I'll show you." I lifted up my shirt to show her the massive bruising on my stomach. Her eyes widened in horror, "It kind of happened on the mission Fiske sent us on, I didn't want to tell anybody 'cause then they would worry, and you know me, I hate it when people worry about me. Oh there is also my head and my ankle by the way."

"Oh gosh Amy. Why didn't you tell, I mean I get that you don't like the attention, by still it could be useful to know that you are injured."

"Oh Ian and Fiske know but they had to, but now it's really hard for me to walk and stuff, do you have anything that will speed the healing process?" I ask

"Yeah, hold on, I've got just the thing, it will automatically fix everything, but on one condition, I get to see how severe your wounds are." I agreed to her terms and she lead me to a CAT scan that I didn't know she had. Sinead told me to get on the table as she prepares her equipment in the other room. The test went quickly, and I sat quietly when she assessed the results. We walked into her main lab with a look of displeasure on her face. "Would you care to explain to me why I see multiple barely healed injuries all over your body?" She whispered yelled.

"You know all those missions I went on a couple months ago, they were just really high risk ones. It's not much of a deal, they were a lot less painful than they look." I quickly lied back. She seemed to accept my lie as she proceeded to give me a vial a bluish liquid, explaining how it worked and to tell her if any side effects occurred, her whole doctor spiel. I downed the concoction and left her room feeling loads better.

The night continued and when their time came, everyone dispersed to each individual's respective rooms, everyone but the three who knew my secret.

We all stared at anything but each other, adverting our gazes from each other's. Ham was the first to speak, "Why. The. HELL. Did you not tell any one of us?" He started out quietly, but the emotions soon propelled his voice to rise. "You know fairly well we would do anything to keep any members of our family safe, why would you think that you would be exempted from that?"

"I didn't think it was important enough to know." I lied, knowing why I hadn't told anyone. Knowing that all I did was to protect him and my family.

"Not important? You do realize you are one of the main reasons this family is united the way it is. I can't even compute how you would get the idea that it doesn't matter…" Ham kept lecturing how stupid I was, and how I should have told people that I was in danger etcetera. And I just took it all in, sitting quietly, knowing the reasoning behind my actions. My eyes soon drifted to my love's face, shocked to see the look of anger on his face. "It is so irresponsible to not tell anyone. What if you died? What if you were taken away from this family? Nobody would've known what happened to you "

" Stop saying this was her fault!" Ian yelled at Ham, finally too annoyed with his lecturing "It wasn't, she couldn't have told anyone about her situation even if she wanted to! Her silence protected Dan, you, Fiske and every other member of our family! She endured so much pain because HE threatened to kill everyone she loves if she let anything slip! So DON'T say her actions were wrong!" Ian huffed and stomped out of the room. Ham sent me a confused look, before muttering an apology and slumped towards the staircase.

I bid Fiske goodnight before I followed Ham and Ian up to our respective rooms, there I settled into my massive bed. I laid on my side, back, and stomach, but sleep would not overcome me. Every few minutes I would get highly uncomfortable, shift to another position, get comfy again, and close my eyes, only to see Evan's cruel, hideous face. His poisonous looks plagued my vision. Then I would have to repeat the process once again.

Lying in my bed wouldn't help anyone, or anything; I needed something to do. I glanced at the clock, 1:23 AM. Sighing, I lift myself out of bed, and drag my lazy ass to the gym that we built in the basement. Not sure how I am going to approach this, but I do know that I need to get into shape. I start with a simple run, about 2 miles. I realize that I am really out of shape. Deciding I need to do core work I walk to the mats in the corner of the gym. I lie down and prepare to do crunches, but once my back touched the mat I was a goner. Finally sleep takes over and my eyelids drift shut, not at all conscious of the fact I was asleep on the gym floor.

That is where Ham finds me the next morning as he comes into to train. "Hiya Amy, I know its weird living next to Ian, but I don't think you needed to some all the way here for a good nights sleep." Ham says jokingly. His silly grin so wide it becomes infectious.

"I know, I couldn't sleep, so I came down here to run a little, I guess I fell asleep." I said sheepishly.

"Ha it's alright I won't tell anyone. It will be our own little secret, at least until it will come in handy." He says with a goofy grin and a wink, then he start to retreat back towards the stairs. It was good to see the old joking Ham back; it was much better than a worried one.

"Wait Ham, I have a question to ask you." He motions for me to continue, "Could you possible train me, I need to be better at field work. I am embarrassingly out of shape."

"What about your injuries?" He asks.

"Oh don't worry about that, Sinead hooked me up with this stuff that healed them pretty quickly."

"Well in that case, Hell to the YES Amy, We'll open Hamilton's School of Awesomeness for you tomorrow morning at, um let me think 4:30" and with my mouth agape at the horrible hour he is telling me to wake up at, he skips out of the room. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Amy… Amy wake up… Amy come on it is 4:35 I let you sleep in, wake up." My eyes opened to a very awake Ham sitting on the edge of my bed, jumping up and down. Quickly looking at my clock I saw that it had only been one and a half hours since I fell asleep. My response was to roll over, and hide under my covers. Just when I thought I won, my blankets disappeared.

"Fine, fine you win, I'm getting up." I sighed and got out of bed tiredly, grumbling all the way down to the basement about lack of sleep and the unnecessary hour we were up at.

"So I made sure no one else would be down here so don't worry about looking weak or whatever. So lets start with a mile warm-up okay?" and then he started to jog. I rushed to catch up with him but before I caught up he adjusted his speed to match mine. We settled into an easy pace, Ham occasionally making small talk, asking about the weather and other trivial things. 7:13.46 minutes after we started (we have a timer mounted on several of the walls) we crossed the finish line.

"So, one of our goals," Ham starts, "is to get that mile down to a 4:30, or lower. It might take quite a bit of time before we get there, but we will. And its always good to have a goal to work towards. After you get a drink of water, we'll start with core." And with that Ham became my coach, tough but encouraging. He was constantly yelling at me "50 more push-ups!" and "come on only one minute left in this plank, we got it!" I wasn't sure how he handled yelling while doing everything I was; because after every exercise I could barley manage a whisper.

Three hours later after six miles on the bike, another two miles running, and countless crunches, wall sits, Russian twist, and many other types of medieval torture devices Ham said we could go back upstairs, only to burst my bubble by ordering me to change into a swim suit and head out to our Olympic sized pool.

"Alright lets do a 500 warm-up, a brief set and then warm-down, and then we'll be done, go it?" Ham ordered and then dove gracefully into the pool. I quickly followed suit and dove not quite as gracefully into another lane. In the next hour we had swam over 3200 meters, and I was overly relieved to hear Ham order a 200 cool down. I was done for the day.

"Hey Amy, you did great today, soon enough you will be in tip-top shape, and then we can work on combat. Also know today was the easiest day you will ever have." And with a loud chortle he waltzed into the house. Minutes later Ian found me lounging out on the pool deck.

"Love? What are you doing up so early?" He said with deep adoration and his eyes full of concern.

"Two nights ago I couldn't sleep, so I went to the gym an tried to waste some energy, and that's where Ham found me yesterday morning, I asked him to help me train, he accepted. So thins morning about an hour and a half after I was able to finally fall asleep, Ham came and woke me up and then he went into major coach mode. I'm going to be so sore tomorrow." I quickly summarized the most recent events. Quite suddenly Ian sat down behind me on the beach lounger and his hand started to massage my neck. My head automatically lolled to one side as he continued to help ease my muscle's stiffness. His hand slowed and before I could protest, they moved to my waist, pulling me closer to him. Ian's lips soon replace his hands as he kissed my neck.

His lips trailed up to my ear where he quietly whispered in my ear, "You know I haven't been sleeping very well either, the only night I got good rest was when I held you in my arms and I knew you were safe."

Shocked by his words I spun around and kissed him full on the lips and muttered against his mouth, "I love you." before sprinting inside for breakfast. Whilst eating Nellie's delectable pancakes I mulled over Ian's word, understanding the truth behind them, I had slept so well in his arms.

When I saw that it was 9:30, I knew that Ham was going to wake me up again at an ungodly hour, so I excused myself. I heard Ian do the same, but didn't think anything of it. I was getting ready to try to fall asleep when I felt the bed shift and muscular arms snake around my waist. Instead of getting angry like I should've I relaxed, tension disappeared from my muscles. I burrowed deep into Ian's chest and sleep found me.

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Hey guys that's the end of chapter 7. I won't normally do this, but since I'm a horrible person and an inconsistent writer, I'll give you a preview for the next chapter.

Ian's POV

I was completely content. The past few weeks had been great, Amy always slept by my side, always safe in my arms. We had a routine down; we would both excuse ourselves from the family at around 8:30, I would go to my room and she to hers, one of us would sneak through the passageway, which was always open now, and fall asleep in each other's embrace. Then the alarm would go off at 4:15 warning me to get out of her room, Ham would come and collect my beloved for training, and I would wait till they were finished. Once they were done Amy and I would either spend the day together, out of the eyes of our family or we would separate and do random things. Then we would repeat.

Three weeks after her first training session, I made a mistake I woke up late.

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