Hello everybody! Welcome to another installment of Untold Stories! I hope you guys are enjoying it so far. Anyway, on with the story!

Chapter 10

Wounds

Richard sat in a chair with his head in his hands. Ruby and Nora were trying to comfort Velvet, who was a sobbing wreck, to almost no extent. The rest of the gang was doing the same thing Richard was doing: waiting for the doctor to tell them about Bailey.

"How did this happen?" asked Rachael, pacing back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. Lance shrugged and looked down at his feet. The memory of Bailey laying in a bloody heap in a clearing of Forever Fall was still fresh in his mind.

One hour earlier...

"What's wrong, Velvet?" asked Ruby. Velvet was crying, but Lance could tell what she was trying to say. "It's Bailey! Please hurry!" Velvet said through tears. Lance immediately caught Bailey's scent and took off. "Follow me!" he called back to the group. The group ran after Lance and Velvet. It took some time to get to where Bailey was. But, when they got there, it wasn't pretty.

Bailey was lying face down on the ground. His arm had been cut open, his leg was broken inward, and it looked like he had been bleeding for a long time. Weiss covered her mouth and turned away. Yang covered Ruby's eyes, even though she's seen worse. Richard, Rachael, and Lance ran up to Bailey's crumpled body. Rachael took his pulse. "I've got a pulse, but its weak." she reported. Richard nodded. "Flip him over, but be careful." he said.

Lance helped Richard flip Bailey onto his back. His face looked like it had been clawed by an Ursa. Rachael covered her mouth. "Oh my God." she said, on the verge of tears. "Alright, we need to get him to a hospital, or he's going to die." said Prof. Goodwitch, finally speaking up. "No healing glyph could heal these wounds." Richard nodded and turned to his team. "Alright, on the count of three, pick him up. But, be careful." he said. Rachael, Lance, and now Jaune picked up Bailey when Richard said three. Afterwards, the professor led them to the airship.

Present time...

"Goddammit, what is taking so long?!" exclaimed Richard, punching the arm if his chair. Weiss flinched at that. "Will you cut that out?" she exclaimed. Richard gave her a look that made Weiss regret yelling. Star put her hand on Richard's shoulder. "Calm down, Richard." she said. He nodded and tried to relax. Then, a doctor came into the room. This made everyone who was sitting stand up. "Is Bailey okay?" asked Velvet, on the verge of tears again. The doctor nodded. "Your friend is lucky to be alive. From the wounds he received, he would've died if he was in the forest any longer." she said. Everyone in the room gave a sigh of relief.

"Can we see him?" asked Nora. The doctor shook her head. "He's asleep right now. We gave him a sedative so we could move the bone he broke in his leg in a spot where it can heal properly." she said. She took out her scroll. "Looks like he'll be awake in a few hours. You can see him then." Lance nodded. "Thank you, Doctor." The doctor nodded and left the room.

"Thank God he's gonna be okay." said Richard, sitting back down. He was still wondering how it happened, but he didn't want to put Velvet through that again by asking her. Weiss got up out of her chair. "Well, I'd better get going. I want to get up early tomorrow so I can go to the Vytal festival." She starting to walk out of the room, but Ruby grabbed her arm to stop her. "What about Bailey?" she asked. Weiss yanked her arm away from Ruby's grasp. "He'll be fine. Plus, the doctor said he'd be awake in a few hours and it is almost 9:00." She saw the look of sadness in Ruby's eyes. She put her hand on her leader's shoulder. "He'll be fine, Ruby." Weiss reassured Ruby.

After Weiss left, everyone was trying to get their mind off of the fact that their friend almost died that day. Most of them were talking about events before this happened. Richard still sat in his chair, trying to figure out who would do such a thing to Bailey. "The only enemy of his that I can think of is Cardin." he thought. "But, he wouldn't be capable of doing something like that. Would he?" Richard looked up for a moment and saw Star waving goodbye to her team. Richard walked over to her. "Where are they going?" he asked. "I sent them home." Star replied. "They still need to get that essay for Port done. And since Bailey's okay, I told them not to worry."

"Why aren't you going with them?"

"Oh, I finished that essay a week ago." said Star. There was an awkward moment of silence before Richard broke it. "I need to figure out who did this to him." Star looked at him worriedly. She put a hand on his shoulder. "I do too, but getting that information right now without Velvet crying is a bit of a long shot." she said. Richard nodded. "I know." he said, sitting down next to Star. "I'm just...really angry and really scared right now." Star gave him a confused look. "Scared of what?" she asked. "I'm scared that my best friend might die." Star put both of her hands on Richard's face and turned his head towards her. "Listen, Richard." she said. "He is going to be fine. The doctor said so. So, there is no reason to be scared." Richard nodded. Star sighed. "And there's no reason for me to be scared either." she said, and kissed Richard on his lips. Richard was, all in all, surprised as all hell. But, he liked it. Star pulled away and smiled. "Wow." was all Richard could say. Star giggled and kissed him again. This time, everyone noticed. "Really?" Yang said, as the two broke apart. "You chose now to be the time to kiss each other?" Richard looked from Yang to Star and just shrugged.

Everyone had left around 11:00, and Richard went to wake Velvet up. "Hey, Velvet. Wake up." Richard whispered. The young Faunus stirred awake and looked at Richard. "What time is it?" Richard looked at the clock. "It's 11:05." he said. Velvet rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out. Then, the doctor came in the room, surprised to see Richard and Velvet were still there.

"Still here?" she asked. Velvet nodded. "I was just about to leave." said Richard. "Is Bailey alright?" The doctor nodded. "Yes. In fact, I think he's awake now." Velvet was fully awake now. She all but shot out of her chair. "Can we see him?" she asked. The doctor looked at the clock. "Well, I'm supposed to be off the clock. But, if you two want, there is another nurse working the graveyard shift until 3:00." Velvet and Richard nodded. "Thank you, doc." said Richard. The doctor nodded and walked out of the room.

Velvet and Richard walked into Bailey's room. It was a little dark in the room. Bailey was hooked up to an EKG machine, his left leg and right arm were in casts, and his face had four long scratch marks on it. Bailey looked towards the door when he heard footsteps and smiled when he saw who it was. "Hey, guys." he said, hoarsefully. Velvet immediately teared up and ran to Bailey's bed, grasping him in a tight hug. "Watch my arm, sweetie." said Bailey. Velvet let him go for a second, then hugged him again so she wasn't on his bad arm. Bailey stroked her hair with his good arm and whispered, "I'm okay, Velvet. I'm okay." Bailey kissed the top of Velvet's head and looked at Richard. "Hey, dude, what's up?"

"You nearly died on us." said Richard. "Lance would've replaced you as leader if you did." Bailey chuckled. "Lance couldn't lead Nora away from a jar of syrup." Richard laughed. "No one could do that." They both laughed for a second, then Richard brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. "What the hell happened to you, man? Who did this?" he asked. Bailey looked down at Velvet, who was now sound asleep, and looked back at Richard. "I'd prefer it if I tell you along with everyone else." Richard nodded. "Alright, man. We'll talk about it tomorrow." He got up and headed towards the door. "Whoever did this to you is going to pay." Bailey nodded. "Damn straight."

I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far. If you do, positive feedback is appreciated. See you on the flip side, guys!