Disclaimer: I own only the plot and my OC's!
"Honestly Dromeda, what was the point of your coming home if you can't stop thinking about the hospital anyway?" asked Ted in a frustrated whisper. Andromeda bit her lip and steered him silently away from their daughter's bedroom door.
"I'm sorry honey, I just can't shake off the feeling that something's wrong over there. Sara is the only fully qualified Healer still on duty and I just think I might have given Carla a bigger job than she can handle," she explained as she led the way down the stairs to the living room. As if to prove her point, the first thing to catch their attention when they reached downstairs was an owl, tapping against the closed window with an air of urgency.
Dread flooded the pit of her stomach and Andromeda had quite possibly never been gladder for Ted's presence. He let the tiny, soaked bird into the shelter of the house and quickly shut the window again. Then he turned, just in time to see the colour in his wife's face drain away entirely as she scanned the little note. "At least my instinct was right," she said shakily. "Poor Carla is in way over her head out there."
Ted kissed the top of her head and said in resignation; "I know you're very close to her, go ahead and help her out, love. I have everything under control here."
"Thank you for understanding," she murmured gratefully. A quick hug and peck on the cheek later, she was spinning in a flurry of green flames.
In what seemed like no time at all, she spun to a stop in the hospital lobby's fireplace. Stepping out onto the spotless marble floor, she caught sight of Carla leaning dejectedly against the, at this hour, deserted receptionist's desk across the room. In quick strides, she reached her side and asked quietly; "How are you holding up?"
With huge tears rolling down her cheeks, Carla mutely shook her head. "I'm sorry for calling you back Andy, but I couldn't go to Sara after disobeying her orders. She-she didn't want me to tell Danny about Jessica, but I couldn't lie to him. I just couldn't!"
"Shush, Carla, it's alright. When I got home I realized I might have put too much weight on your shoulders and I'm sorry, too. As to the issue with Jess, I personally think you did the right thing by being honest. How did he take it?"
Carla jabbed the button to call the elevator ferociously, just to avoid answering the question at once, desperate to put off the moment when she would have to think about how shocked and upset Daniel had looked when she told him the bad news. "It was a nightmare," she said sadly.
"His blood transfusion had just about run its course and I was about to take the needle and stuff out when Sara paged me. Of course he noticed at once that something wasn't right and wanted to know what the problem was. We've been friends for far too long for him to believe anything but the truth and that was the problem." Andromeda nodded sympathetically, just as they reached the correct floor and Carla concluded her explanation simply with a, by this time, well-known fact; "I can't lie to Danny, he always knows."
"That's the price of a good friendship, secrets are impossible," agreed Andromeda, as they passed through the sliding door. Almost as if crossing this particular threshold had struck them dumb, silence fell abruptly. Carla had eyes only for Daniel, while Andromeda automatically followed his horrified gaze through the observation window of Jessica's room. But unlike him, she relaxed her stance when Jessica twitched in her sleep. She was fine; exhausted, but fine.
She entered the girl's room, just as Carla was about to begin her latest pep talk. The fact that she wasn't stuck in the middle of this crisis alone anymore had given her fresh confidence, it seemed. She laced her slender fingers through his and stood in observatory silence, wondering how to phrase her thoughts. Before she could decide what to say first, he cut into her internal ramblings in a disbelieving voice. "Jessie's not going for the service."
It was painfully obvious how much trouble he was having getting his mind around the idea. Carla twirled a strand of her straight, blonde hair around her finger, an old nervous habit. She wasn't prepared for the breakdown, which wasn't far off, as his glassy, overly bright eyes plainly told her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jessica move again. It was the sight of Andromeda's relieved expression that told her it was for good this time.
"Look at that, she's okay you know?" she pointed out excitedly, to no response. Then it hit her that she'd been so busy watching Jessica that she hadn't even noticed Daniel let go of her hand. Apprehensively she turned to see him leaning hard against the opposite wall, looking as pale as any ghost she had ever seen. Quickly she moved towards him and asked anxiously; "Hey, are you feeling okay?"
He nodded absently, but added so quietly that she nearly missed it; "I can't do this Carly, it's obvious to us that Jess can't go anywhere now, including the service, but how to tell her that? As with any siblings, they had their differences, but at the end of the day Nora meant the world to her. "
Carla shook her head in exasperation; "Now you listen to me, mister! How Jessica learns that she's going to miss her sister's funeral should be the least of your concerns, alright? Why do you think I called Andromeda in the first place? She's here to break the bad news to Jess like no one else can. Just talk to her after Andromeda is done in there and then look after yourself for once, please!"
Carla finished her stern speech with a little smirk, pleased that she had stunned him into silence at long last. 'Possibly more than stunned silence,' she mused, when he pulled her petite figure into a rib-cracking hug and pressed his head down against her shoulder. Something inside him had apparently snapped at her firm words. Tactfully she ignored the steady flow of tears soaking through her shirt and squeezed him hard instead.
What seemed like an eternity later, but was in reality a few minutes at best, he straightened up and wiped one hand shakily across his eyes. Then he faced her with an awkward, apologetic smile. "Sorry about that, I just-"
"Oh, shut up," she cut him of fondly. "If it had been anybody else, I would have said it's my job, but for you it's a pleasure. The only context in which what just happened could be considered a chore, is if it's looked at as a duty between friends, are we clear?"
"Okay," he nodded, a little too quickly for her liking; there was obviously still something he wasn't saying.
Hesitantly she laid a hand on his shoulder and asked gently; "Why do I get the feeling there's more to Nora's death than you're letting on?"
"Maybe because there is," he muttered darkly, annoyed by her superb intuition. Healers in general had brilliant instincts and their closeness was definitely working in her favour at the moment.
Carla watched helplessly as he turned and stared fixedly through the glass at Jessica after that gloomy proclamation. She didn't want to push him, but sensed that whatever else had happened during the battle was the root of his problem. They were back where they started, watching Jessica and Andromeda in subdued silence. She stood quietly, holding his hand as a gesture of support rather than spouting meaningless words, however well intended they might have been, and hoped that he would willingly confide in her.
Even though Jessica had his undivided attention, Daniel could feel Carla's relentless, penetrating gaze on him. It was that, combined with the heart-broken expression that crossed Jessica's face seconds later, which finally drove him to speak. "Carly, did I ever tell you why I always treated Jess and Nora as if they were my actual siblings instead of just cousins?"
"I don't think so," she admitted. "Though I have noticed many people who don't know your family well get quite confused by the relationship you three shared."
He smiled grimly; "Their confusion was for good reason. Cousins aren't generally as close as the three of us always were. People who knew us well enough went along with it when we referred to each other as brother and sisters because they knew the story behind it. Come to think of it, you started going along with it too, didn't you?"
Carla nodded, looked slightly confused; "When we first became friends I never used to, then I realized how much it upset you when I called you all cousins, so I joined the trend without really thinking about it. Am I about to find out why it used to upset you so much?"
He took a deep breath and nodded slowly; "Yeah, I reckon it's about time I let you in on the secret. So for starters, Nora and Jess are actually my cousins, our mothers were sisters. But the thing is I do in fact have two proper sisters, twins Jenny and Anna. Or at least I did, before Jasper corrupted their minds when they were nineteen."
At that, Carla finally raised a hand to silence him; her mind was reeling with the new information. "Merlin, Danny, slow down! Talk about information overload," she said with half a smile. "So, um...first things first, the bit about twin sisters who are really your sisters I get, but who's Jasper?"
He scowled, so obviously angered by the mere mention of the name, that Carla almost wished she had never said anything. Eventually he elaborated moodily; "Jasper Mariano is, unfortunately, my father."
Ignoring her shocked gasp, he continued; "There are big age differences in our family, the smallest is the one year separating Jessie and I. The twins and I are twelve years apart, I was seven years old when Jasper entered the twins into You Know Who's service, it turned out he had always been a supporter. Mum and I never saw any of them again until somehow they got wind of Nora's wedding in 1977."
"Nora's wedding?" Carla repeated stupidly. She found it difficult to imagine the serious young woman in her memory as a bride.
"Yes, Nora's wedding," he re-confirmed, unperturbed by her obvious surprise. "Their father had already passed away by then, so Jasper offered to walk her down the aisle. Aunt Vivian had her reservations about him getting involved but my mother convinced her he was sincerely trying to help. She was blinded by her lasting feelings for him, despite how he had led the twins down the path of evil all those years ago."
"What happened then?" Carla asked cautiously. The dark turn the conversation had taken was overwhelming.
"What do you think?" he muttered sarcastically. "His bullshit story of great remorse for what he had put her through convinced my mother he meant well and she managed to convince Aunt Vivian and Nora. The day of the wedding he used his inside position to let his Death Eater pals into the church at Godric's Hollow and only Jess, Nora and I made it out of there alive that day. Mum and Aunt Vivian both died in hospital afterwards and Nora's fiancé was killed there and then."
"Oh gosh, that's awful," said Carla fervently when he had finished. Under normal circumstances, she was the sort of person who would find it amusing that her best friend had confided his most personal secret to her while they were standing in a hospital corridor, but instead, words failed her at that moment. She watched him brood in silence for a while and then asked; "At the risk of sounding like a complete moron, I have to ask: What does all of that have to do with Nora's death?"
"It's not a moronic question," he assured her, but she couldn't help but notice that he sounded distant and was frowning deeply besides. She rubbed his arm comfortingly and was about to say something when he finished his trail of thought. "Do you remember me telling you that someone Stunned Nora at the battle at Hogwarts, making her roll off towards the Whomping Willow?" he asked her.
Confused, Carla nodded; "Yeah, but what-?"
"I'm coming to that," he cut her off impatiently. Then he closed his eyes, as if the mere thought of what he was about to say was causing him physical pain. Carla stuck to her policy of not forcing information out of him and waited, until he opened his eyes again and they were, once more, glistening with unshed tears.
The second she touched his cheek soothingly, the final dam burst and he choked out; "Anna shot that Stunner at Nora, the bitch killed her own cousin!"
That was beyond anything she had expected, but before Carla could even begin to express her shock, Andromeda re-joined them in the corridor. Almost as if she could sense that major confessions had happened even out there while she had consoled Jessica, she said apologetically; "Daniel, Jess wants to have a word with you."
A/ N Longest chapter to date! Makes the long wait worth it I hope. ;)