And Hope to Die

Attack of the evil exposition! Luckily I disliked the original version on this chapter so much, because it was written from Gil's point of view and mostly consisted of exposition, I took it off and will probably post it as a side oneshot so a lot of the exposition got cut out. Hope you enjoy this last chapter and please drop me a review to let me know what you think.


Stick a needle in your eye


The world slowly came back into focus after Liam opened his eyes to the white room. As soon as he realized he didn't know where he was he instinctively reached out for his wand, fingers searching for the pocket sewn in his robes only to find it, and his usual robes, missing. The robes he was wearing were completely unknown and slightly too big. He couldn't see very well, someone had taken his glasses, and the moment before he was going to reflexively cast a spell a hand that he knew touched his shoulder.

"You're at St. Mungo's." said a voice he also knew. "And, don't hex me."

Liam let the words of the spell that had leapt to the forefront of his mind fade and squinted at the flesh colored blur that might have been face shaped. "…Xer…xes?" he asked and was surprised when his voice rasped like a rusty gate.

"That's right. Are you really awake this time?"

He tried to get the blur to focus, without much success. "Is… that you?"

"Oh, right. You can't see. Here." the flesh colored blob moved away and returned to put his glasses on his nose. "Better?"

Frowning at the room Liam ignored the question in favor of figuring out where exactly he was. After scanning the small, rather white, room he concluded that, yes, this looked rather like a hospital, and yes, it was probably St. Mungo's. "Is that… actually you, Xerc?"

"Always so suspicious," Break sighed. "Not that it isn't justified; you steal candy from my desk with a spell. And you do it because you have a rather large sweet tooth you like to keep secret. Satisfied?"

"Oh…" Liam said slowly, filing that Break was really Break in his growing list of things he knew about the new situation. "How did I get here?"

Break actually chuckled at that, "You must actually be awake this time to ask a question like that. How do you think you got here?"

"Don't answer a question with a question," Liam said grumpily, the paused. "'This time'?" he repeated. "How long have I been out?"

At that Break avoided his gaze. "I'm not supposed to tell you. Not right after you wake up. Healer's orders."

"Xerxes," Liam glared at him, "How long?"

"Not as long as you're thinking." Break hurriedly said. "Only a week."

"A week?" the sheer amount of time past, and surely paperwork accumulated, made Liam wince, which made him remember the wound across his chest. When he lifted a hand to press it to where he remembered the wound being there was no sting of pain under his hand.

"They had to fill you pretty full of magic to make that cut seal," Break explained. "You know wounds from spells are harder to heal. They said that's why you slept so long, all that magic in your system."

"A week…" Liam shook his head. "That's even longer than that time in Scotland."

"You stepped on the trigger for that stun hex, it was different. And there was that castle that time." Both of them winced at the shared memory.

They had broken into the Scottish castle to save Gil, it had been the other Auror's first solo mission and he'd been taken hostage by the dark witch he was supposed to be questioning. It turned out to be an interesting night all around, the witch had booby-trapped the whole castle so they'd been faced with several unpleasant surprises while breaking in. That stun hex had put Liam out for the better part of two days while Break holed up in an obscure part of the castle with him and waited for his partner to wake up; all the time hoping that the witch didn't spot his hiding place. They had rescued Gil after that, but it was far cry from an easy mission.

"At least this time you didn't have to hide in a castle with a stunned idiot." Liam said.

"No, this time," Break glanced down, something like guilt passing over his face. "This time you had to haul my idiot body through the forest while you bleed more than a person should ever bleed."

"It was my turn to do the rescuing." Liam pointed out.

"It doesn't work like that." Break snapped. "We looked out for each other, we watched each other's back, but that was before…" he sighed and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes. "I'm not supposed to be upsetting you. I've done just about as lovely a job at that as I did saving you from Baskerville. I suppose you were right, when we had that argument, I am a danger to everyone who knows me. Look what I let Baskerville do to you."

"What happened to her?" Liam asked, seizing on the chance to change the subject from the tatters of their former partnership to anything else. "Is she really… did I actually…"

"You did. She's dead." there wasn't a trace of regret in Break's voice. "I'm not particularly upset, just a bit, well… surprised. That wasn't how I thought I would be loosing my seventh wand."

"I would have used mine if she hadn't taken it, if that's any comfort to you. I don't think… that's not something I would do again if I had the choice." He had never been particularly fond of violence, despite being an Auror. If there had been another choice… but there hadn't been.

He glanced away from Break, who was watching him with the over-intent gaze of someone who watches one who might fall over faint at any moment, and noticed the flowers on the bedside table for the first time. They were arranged in a vase, with a card lying next to them. "Who are those from?" he asked Break.

That Break would have been there to see them delivered, and there for most of the time he was unconscious, Liam took for granted. No partner, even a partner that had a rather nasty falling out with his teammate like Break had with him, would let said teammate lie defenseless where someone who wanted him dead (an Auror had a lot of enemies) could attack.

Break stalled answering, rustling around in his pockets, finding a candy, making a process of unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth.

"Who are those from?" Liam repeated, suspicious at Break's reluctance to talk. He reached for the card and frowned, not at the 'Get well soon!' but the signature. "Sharon was here?"

"Two days ago," Break admitted reluctantly.

"Why was she here?"

"To visit you of course."

"And you?"

"… well, I was here, after all." In the uncomfortable silence Break cracked the candy between his teeth. "I know you don't like that we're still together." he said finally, and the way he said it sounded almost like a peace offering to Liam.

"She's too young for you." Liam said. It was what he had said from the beginning, ever since his childhood friend and then-time partner had started a discrete relationship. "And if you're not careful you'll ruin her career." The words were hollow, only an echo of the ones he had said with much more anger during many an argument.

"I know." said Break, his words too were hollow. If they hadn't spent those weeks working together on the Baskerville case they might have had another version of the same argument they had had several times before but that and the dark night in the woods had changed things.

"… you're an idiot, Break."

"I already said I was. In that part before where I was being annoyed at myself at getting taken out by Baskerville."

"That was stupid."

"I know." Break chewed noisily on the remains on his candy. "You needed me to pull you out there alive and I got myself knocked out."

"I don't always need you to rescue me, you know. I have managed pretty well myself."

"You did. It's going to be another one of those office legends, like that one with Mad-Eye and the kitchen knife, Auror drags his unconscious teammate half a mile with a wound he shouldn't even have been able to walk with. And lives to blush excessively every time he hears the story."

"It was really half a mile?"

"That's what Gil and Sharon tell me. And since they had to run it to get to us, I believe them. It certainly makes the head to toes bruises much more reasonable."

"How are you, by the way?" Liam asked. "I should have asked earlier. There must have been burns… and a concussion from the head wound?"

"Not a very bad one." said Break. "Sharon had me back up and feeling decently that night."

"She'll make a good healer one day."

"I know. And I don't plan on ruining her apprenticeship, really."

"Yes, but…" Liam rolled his eyes. "I don't feel much like having this argument again. You know if you hurt her I'm going to do worse to you than steal the candy out of your desk."

"Of course." Break said. "I expected that." But as he glanced at him something, an expression he quickly tried to hide, crossed his face.

Liam frowned. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"No, nothing." Break said so fast Liam immediately held out both hands to inspect them.

All ten fingers were there, his arms also seemed intact, he did a quick mental tally of his body for anything that appeared to be in pain or obviously missing. And came up blank. He was pretty well healed for what he had gone through. Or so it seemed, unless Break wasn't telling him something important. "What is it?" he asked cautiously.

"You do know the healers gave me very strict orders about upsetting you if you woke up."

"Which you ignored before and will now too."

Break snorted. "You're persistent."

"Which is why you're going to tell me." Liam said. "What is it?"

"Remember that cut on your face, the deep one?"

"…yes."

"You'll notice it's still there."

Liam reached up to cautiously touch his cheek and was surprised to find the slash only slightly healed. "Odd, considering all that magic you said they pumped through me."

"It'll be there for a while. When they were healing you the healers focused all the other wounds and left that one until last. You've earned yourself a lovely facial scar."

Feeling the length of the cut Liam sighed. "Is that all? You had me thinking worse."

"Well," Break shrugged, "It's a scar. A nasty one."

"I'm an Auror. I'll have plenty of scars in a few years. It comes with job." Liam said.

"I thought I'd break it to you gently all the same. The healers were adamant about the possibility of you reacting very badly. I had quite the lecture."

"They don't know Aurors."

"That is exactly what I thought too."

"How did they react to you being here?" he asked

"They intensely disliked my camp-out. But I was stubborn and it wasn't as if anyone could throw me out." Break grinned. "There are some definite perks to being messily one eyed and thus looking rather dangerous. No one wants to figure out if I really am capable of keeping them from throwing me out."

"You would think with the amount of Aurors that end up here that the staff would be a little more used to their teammates doing guard duty."

"But they they would be unable to ponder the strange doings of the mysterious and possibly insane dark wizard catchers." Break's smile changed from the slightly wicked to something fond, "You know, you're possibly the only person I know who would take being in a coma for a week like it was nothing but an irritation."

"It is. There must be no free space left on my desk anymore for paperwo…" he was interrupted by a yawn.

"The paperwork will keep." Break said, with great lack of concern.

"But my desk won't if it collapses under the-" he was again interrupted by a yawn, bigger than the last, and continued when it passed. "The weight of all-" for a third time he yawned.

With a laugh Break reached out take the glasses off his face.

"What are you-" he yawned a fourth time, unable to finish his sentence.

"Go back to sleep again." the blur that was Break said. "I'll go out and tell the healers you were awake a neglect to mention how long."

"How wicked of you…" he yawned yet again, feeling his eyelids feel inconveniently heavy. "And… what do mean… 'again'?"

The blob that was Break had retreated toward the door but at his words he paused, probably turning back. "You woke a few other times but… well, you weren't really awake, if you know what I mean."

"That's why you… asked me if I was… 'really awake' this… time."

"It is. And… I'm sorry about the horrible rescue."

"Doesn't… matter," Liam said sleepily. "Made it out… with both… of us… alright… anyway."

"That we did." said Break, heading again toward the door. Just at it he paused again. "Thank you for not dying." he murmured.

"Well… I did… promise… didn't… I…"

"You did. Very solemnly."

"Yes… Cross my…heart…and hope to…die…"

"Though, of course, you didn't. Which I'm more grateful for than you'll ever know. Now go to sleep."

Break left and Liam stopped fighting the urge to close his eyes. Just before sleep he could have sworn he heard the murmur of Break speaking to the healers. And no doubt editing the tale quite thoroughly.

Which meant just about everything had returned about as close to normal as it usually was. Quite a relief.


Cross my heart

And hope to die

Stick a needle in my eye.

The End