Disclaimer: I own nothing and profit none.
A/N: Right, so that nice little epilogue I promised you? Blossomed into a seventeen page monstrosity. I'm still not sure what happened - Will got started, dragged Magnus willingly into the madness, and the epilogue wound up longer than any other chapter. As that seemed just wrong, I've instead split it into two new chapters. The other half will be up in the next few days once I tweak it a little and then - hopefully! - the really, truly epilogue will at last make an appearance. Once again, bless, bless you lovely reviewers. Even if I partially blame you for The-Epilogue-That-Would-Not-Die.
He winced as an indiscreet movement sent a throb of pain up his leg. Who knew broken bones hurt this badly? With a sigh, he sat back and tried to stop shifting. It was difficult; between his broken ankle, the healing claw marks that itched like crazy, two re-cracked ribs, and the vast collection of bruises, there didn't seem to be one comfortable way to arrange his body on this sofa. Not to mention his cold. It could be worse, he reminded himself, remember the lecture Magnus read you?
If he had thought the worst was over after their chat in the infirmary while he was still exhausted and in pain, he learned how very wrong he was the next day. The storm had done him one good turn, at least: through the rain, Magnus hadn't been able to see the cliff side. Once she returned the next day, however, and saw the area – particularly the aftermath of the mud slide and the condition of the caves he'd traipsed through alone – no amount of pain killers could buffer him from her temper. For the better part of an hour he had suffered through everything that could have gone wrong and people who had died in such a manner, simply by not taking proper precautions. Cave-ins, drowning in mud, dangerous hibernating creatures, he was fairly confident that she hadn't left anything out. By the end, he felt about ten inches tall and a complete idiot.
Five Days Earlier:
"I'm actually not certain how you made it back here, Will," she finally snapped at the end, "There must surely exist a patron saint of fools. You are extremely lucky to have only the few injuries that you do."
"I'm not sure a broken ankle is exactly lucky," he unwisely protested, cowed by her tirade, but still upset that he'd actually broken his ankle instead of the simple sprain he'd assumed.
"It could well have been a broken neck," Magnus flatly stated, "Now get some rest. We need to discuss how we're going to deal with this, but not until I find I'm less tempted to wring your neck myself."
She stalked out then and he didn't dare call after her. His rest was broken and disturbed until the middle of a nightmare in which Magnus shoved him back into the caves he'd been in the night before and walked out as a cave-in sealed him shut in the dark. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and tried to escape from it, certain that it must be some creature he had accidentally awakened that now thought a Will-sandwich sounded just the thing.
"Sh, it's alright."
After a moment, he realized that the creature had Magnus' voice.
Huh, he thought fuzzily, she must have found another entrance. He tried to beg with her to let him out, apologizing over and over again, but she just kept telling him that he was safe. How could he be safe in a cave? Something was undoubtedly going to eat them soon. He hoped that he would taste really, really bad.
Instead of being eaten, however, he felt Magnus reach out and pull him close in the dark. Abruptly, it wasn't cave-darkness anymore, just a normal nighttime, and he looked around to find that they were on the North Tower. Then something happened involving gum drops and bouncing on tree tops, but it was all a little fuzzy after that point.
Waking up in the afternoon to find his head lying on a pillow in Magnus' lap and the rest of him wrapped around her leg was unfortunately less fuzzy.
"Magnus?" he whispered, almost hoping that this was another dream.
"I'm right here, Will," she said absent-mindedly, in a tone that suggested it was a phrase she had been saying frequently in the near past, and ran a hand through his hair, "You're safe."
"Um, I know," he answered, confused, before trying to maneuver himself out of her lap only to be stopped by his ribs and the cuts across his stomach flaring in protest.
An arm across his back prevented him from moving any further and he waited in embarrassed silence through the shuffling sounds of papers being shifted away before Magnus slipped off of the cot and settled his head down on the pillow alone.
"Good timing," she commented airily, as though all bosses let their employees use them as a teddy bear, "You're awake in time for lunch."
"I'm not really hungry," he remarked, weakly, trying to figure out if he had imagined waking up in her lap in some drug-induced state. I must be on the good stuff.
"You've lost too much weight recently to be skipping meals," she scolded lightly, preparing something out of his range of vision. Lunch, presumably. "I know the pain medications suppress appetite, but you must eat something."
Magnus returned with a lap tray before he could work out a subtle way to word the question on his mind.
"Was I sleeping on you?" Yeah, real subtle, Will. He cringed at his own mental voice.
"Hm," she made an affirmative noise as though the event were of no moment, "My lecture from earlier must have been a bit much for your system, your rest was incredibly disturbed. It was only fair that I make up for it, having set it off."
Before he could figure out an answer to that, she scooted the tray closer to him pointedly, "Eat, Will. Try to get down at least half of that. I'll be back shortly, I just need to file these," she indicated the paperwork piled on the rolling tray to the side of his cot before picking them up and exiting the room.
Confused, he regarded the tray for a moment before deciding to chalk it all up to the drugs and put it out of his mind.
Of course, it would be easier to put it out of his mind if he would stop thinking about it and blushing. Frustrated at his own mind he made an incautious movement and winced anew at the pain. Well, that was one way to focus on something else.
After three days of lying on this sofa he fumed, glaring at his ankle, shouldn't it be tired of hurting? He knew that if he asked, Magnus would supply something or other to take the edge off of the pain. And also knock him out. As he really needed to get some of this paperwork done, that didn't seem like a good option. Just a really tempting one.
Sighing, he made yet another mental note not to move, popped another cough drop, and turned back to reading about Henry's latest attempt to create a smaller stunner. A noise from the door caused him to glance up in time to see the Big Guy enter the room carrying a tea tray.
Startled, he looked over at the clock. How was it afternoon already? He looked over at his stacks of paperwork and relaxed upon seeing that his 'done' pile was considerably advanced from the morning. For a moment he had feared that he'd gone back to falling asleep every five seconds like he had on the first day outside of the infirmary.
Biggie might need some help with the tray. He shifted to rise, but was interrupted before he'd made it to the edge of the sofa.
"Stay put, Will." Magnus rose from behind her desk to go and assist.
He sank back onto the sofa with a sigh and a cough. Another month of this might just kill him, although it was going better than he'd expected when Magnus had first told him about her plan.
Four Days Earlier:
"So, until I can trust you to exercise a modicum of common sense," Magnus' tone towards the end of her sentence took on a biting edge. He winced. "You'll be with me."
He looked at her blankly for a few moments, hoping for clarification. She simply stared back at him, implacable, waiting for a reaction.
"On missions?" he finally hazarded.
"No, you're off the active list until that ankle heals," Magnus shifted further onto the cot and placed a hand on the other side of his legs to prop herself up, "I meant you'll be by my side."
How was this different from usual?
"All day, Will," she expanded, seeing his continued confusion, "Where I go, you go."
He was beginning to catch hold of the idea, but he was not liking the shape it was taking.
"But, my work?" he spluttered.
"Can just as well be done in my office. Apart from seeing to patients, of course."
"I can't sleep in your office!" he blurted out, shocked at the turn this conversation had taken.
"You have before," Magnus pointed out with a teasing smile. He furiously trounced the blush that tried to make its way to his face. The woman could work inhuman hours; he should get a little credit for at least trying to keep up. "But I believe we can make an exception for that and let you sleep in your own room. For all waking hours you'll be with me."
"You can't…" he tried to wrap his mind around this insane idea long enough to refute it, "This is crazy. I'm perfectly capable. This is…"
"Will." Magnus cut into his somewhat disjointed ramblings and began to tick points off on her fingers, "You ignored my orders. You left on a mission without telling anyone. You went, alone, after a creature that you have admitted you know little about. You climbed down a cliff and entered a cave system without any of the proper equipment or precautions. You did all of this without letting anyone know where you were." She held up a hand when he went to explain himself. "I know you are capable, Will but, even barring any of the disasters that you were lucky enough to avoid, consider what did happen. What if the creature hadn't been so weak with hunger that it didn't have the energy to maul you beyond a few weak swipes? Or what if your phone had been damaged in the fall? How much longer do you think it would have taken us to find you? Once we even knew to begin looking for you – which would have been when? The next morning?"
"I," he stopped, torn. It sounded so much worse the way she phrased things. It hadn't been that bad, really.
"You need to learn to trust us, Will. To trust me."
He looked up at that statement, feeling his eyes widen, no longer finding his hands quite so fascinating.
"I do trust you. Always." It was practically an immutable law of the universe. She had to know that, didn't she?
Magnus gave him a soft smile, "Not just with what you find convenient for me to know, Will, or what I already know from your past."
"I do, Magnus," he broke in, not wanting to hear what else she knew about him, or could guess, "It's not you, it's, it's me." He paused, then brought a hand up to cover the snicker that he couldn't quite suppress, "I sound like a teenage girl."
"Yes," he heard the laughter in her voice and snorted before she turned serious again, "but I still want to know what you mean."
"I mean," he huffed a breath, laughter dying away fast, "I don't know."
He waited in silence for a moment, but she made no moves to speak. How do I say this?
"I'm going to screw this up."
Well, that's one way.
"Not so long as you remain yourself, Will," came the almost immediate answer, followed by a pointed, "and stop hiding from me."
He shook his head slightly, staring at his fingertips instead. One day, he would have these whorls memorized. He felt a tap on his chin and looked up into soft blue eyes.
"I believe we got off subject a bit."
What was…? Oh right, her insane plan.
"I daresay that by the time your ankle had healed, if we haven't killed each other, then you may safely assume we can work with each other for many years to come."
She stood while he processed that statement and walked towards the lab table. Probably getting one of those trays with which she took an unholy delight in stuffing him. By the time she let him out of here, they'd probably have to roll him to his office. Or hers, now. He cringed. Trying to distract himself, he stretched for the tablet Magnus had left just out of reach. If he propped himself up on his elbow, leaned that way to avoid pulling anything that hurt, he might just be able to get it.
"Perhaps by then," she continued, "I'll also feel more confident that you won't tear off half-cocked again."
His elbow slipped, smacking against the bed frame, and he awkwardly fell half off of the cot. Pain burned across his stomach and ribs. A few soft curses slipped from his lips. Smooth, Will.
He tried to ignore the sigh behind him and the muttered, "Or maybe not."
He was roused from the beginnings of a light doze by the sound of porcelain tapping gently down on wood nearby. Looking over, he saw Magnus retreating towards the desk with her own cup of tea. Left behind on the table for him was not only a cup of tea, but also a light luncheon. He wasn't sure if it had been Magnus' idea or the Big Guy's, but it hardly mattered as it seemed they were both in collaboration to stuff him as often as possible.
Feeling long suffering, he ignored both cup and plate, returning to his remaining files. He got away with it for less than half of an hour before the displacement of Magnus settling at his hip pulled him from his third rereading of page three, sentence two in the world's most boring document.
"Interesting case?" she asked blandly, with an eloquent arch of her eyebrow.
He turned back to the first page for the subject line, "Reorganizing the cataloguing of those subspecies of the pterodactyl which are flightless." He made a face, "Riveting."
"Ah. Then I am curious why your tea holds little appeal for you."
"You aren't going to change me from a coffee-drinker to a tea-drinker through forced indoctrination," he grinned challengingly at her.
"Heaven forbid," she quipped back, "Are you also swearing off sandwiches?"
"We had an early lunch not that long ago," he shifted slightly and regretted it instantly when his ankle twinged louder in protest.
"One at which you barely ate anything," Magnus immediately fired back. "What's wrong?"
At a slight crinkling sound, he looked down to see the file had given in to the tightening of his hands and was now a little bent around the edges. He focused on smoothing it out once more, but he knew that Magnus wasn't going to give up. She could be annoyingly focused at times. Trust, Will, he reminded himself when, as expected, Magnus remained unmoving, you're supposed to be working on this, remember?
"My ankle hurts," he muttered, cringing at the slight whine wending its way through the sentence.
"You should have said something earlier, that's easy enough to fix," she made as if to move off of the sofa, but he reached out and caught her arm before she rose.
"No, I don't want to be knocked out again," he quirked a half-smile up at her, "I've almost caught up on these files and I swear they breed whenever I fall asleep."
"At this rate you're going to run out of reports before the first week is up, Will," she scrutinized his face for a moment, until he grew self-conscious and looked back at the file in his lap. He didn't look back up until her thumb rubbed over his cheekbone, "and you look as though you could use the sleep."
"I think that's all I've done for the past week," he groused.
"Your body's recovering, Will. Not to mention fighting off that cold. It likes sleep even if you don't." She moved her hand up to rest the back of it against his forehead and frowned at the heat he knew was radiating off of him. "Let me get you something for the pain. I suspect that's all that is keeping you awake right now, anyway."
"But, I need to…" he motioned vaguely at his 'to-read' pile, before she cut him off.
"Either pain meds and a nap now or you can stay in the off-bedroom tonight," Magnus stated in a tone that left no room for argument. She reached out to tilt his face towards the light, "Did you get any sleep after you left last night?"
Bringing the off-bedroom into the equation was just low. Tucked behind an unassuming door at the back of Magnus' office was a small bedroom and en suite where she had a habit of stuffing those injured members of the staff that she didn't trust to rest on their own. Mainly, as every member of the staff agreed, it accomplished one thing: it gave her ample opportunity to perfect her hovering. They were notorious for attempting to avoid it at all costs.
"Yeah, I got some," he answered vaguely. It wasn't quite a lie. He had dozed a few times briefly, but between the pain, the cold, his nightmares, and his usual insomnia, his last bout of true sleep had been when he fell asleep on the sofa two nights ago. Rather than wake him up to send him to bed, Magnus had left him on the sofa and he had woken in the morning with a blanket tucked around him. He had made certain to make it to his bed the next night, but now he was actually considering that night with a deep fondness. Sleep was so very underrated.
He closed his eyes against the light and let his head rest against her hand.
"Hm," she hummed a disbelieving note, "Or perhaps I'll insist upon both."
Inhaling a breath to argue, he instead let it out as a sigh. His instincts were telling him to argue, to keep her at a distance, but he was so tired. To be honest, in a way that he would never say aloud on the grounds of possibly being committed by his fellow employees, the off-bedroom was sounding pretty tempting.
He opened his eyes again and met hers for a moment, before making the unusual move to surrender.
"Okay," he said at last. Immediately, he realized that he should perhaps have given some context to that decision, as Magnus' eyes flew wide open and her concerned furrow deepened alarmingly.
"I'm just too tired to argue with you, Magnus," he hurried to say before she hauled him back to the infirmary.
"That's a first," she smiled at him and patted his cheek before withdrawing and standing from the sofa. She moved to her desk to rummage in the drawer with what he privately termed as her 'drug stash' in it. Her return was accompanied by two bottles of something that looked vile through the plastic sides and a glass of water. Retaking her seat, Magnus measured out a bit of the liquid from one into his tea and stirred it before handing it over to him with a stern look and the order, "All of it."
Gingerly taking a sip, he was relieved that he couldn't taste anything other than sweetened tea. Mindful of the watchful eye beside him, he quickly drained the cup and shifted to set it on the table again. It was intercepted on the way, though, and she added a dose from the other bottle to the empty cup and handed it back. At his questioning look, she explained, "That cold is tenacious and your fever's rising again. This should help."
Sighing, he slugged the dose back and grimaced at the taste. This one matched how it looked in terms of disgusting. He looked over at a tug on the cup and let Magnus replace it with the water. It took the entire glass before the taste was only an awful memory.
"The side effects will be less overwhelming if you have something in your stomach besides tea," Magnus said softly, holding the plate out between them. Resigned, he avoided the sandwiches to nibble on a few of the vegetables and a cookie, enjoying the receding pain levels, before he could feel his eyes starting to fall shut against his will.
"You will be eating dinner," she threatened before rising to let him shift his languid limbs down the sofa to lay flat.
"Um," he managed, non-committedly, eyes refusing to open any longer as he felt a blanket being tucked around him securely and a pillow slipping under his head.
"Nearly asleep and still arguing?" he heard her gently tease and his lips quirked into a slight smile. Before he could retort, however, he felt the drugs sweep him under to sleep.