Chapter 25
The first thing Fleur thinks about when she comes into consciousness, it's that she has had an extremely strange dream.
It takes just about seconds to notice that it is not the only strange thing she can sense as her awareness comes
back... and it's most certainly not a dream. Fleur is exhausted and her chest aches, literally. Every breath she takes burns in her lungs and her arms itch terribly.
The blonde opens her eyes to a white room that blinds her momentarily. Her pupils adjust to the light and she inspects her surroundings. Fleur slowly moves her arms to her line of sight and discovers they are wrapped in bandages, making it difficult for the blonde to bend her elbows.
Fleur is wearing a hospital gown and she has an oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. She tries to touch it and take it off.
"Fleur!" She hears by her side. The blonde halts her hands and turns her head to find Hermione dropping her book and getting up from the hospital bed beside. The brunette smiles with relief in her eyes. She puts one hand at the back of her head and the other places correctly the mask over her nose and mouth. "Don't take it off, you need it."
'Why do I need it? What happened to me and my team? Am I going to be okay?' Fleur wants to scream, but if it aches for her to breathe she is certain screaming won't be a good idea. The blonde tries to at least sit up.ç
"Wait." She puts a hand on her shoulder gently, pushing her back to the mattress. Hermione levitates the top part of the hospital bed so she is not completely horizontal anymore. Hermione sits on the edge of the bed – the blonde absent-mindedly moves over to the side so she can sit comfortably - and kisses her forehead.
Fleur leans into her touch. "The healers say you are going to be fine." The blonde looks at her and then down to the mask and her bandaged arms.
"You triggered a booby trap. Quite rudimentary and non-magical, but an acid-like potion started pouring from the ceiling. It was boiling hot and the steam managed to trespass the shield you had casted around you and your team." Fleur examines herself again. "You breathed in some of the steam, burning your respiratory system and falling unconscious. The mask provides you not only with oxygen, but with a regenerating potion that is helping regenerate the tissue of your lungs more quickly." She nods.
That sounds like it could have gone incredibly bad. Fleur looks down to the thick bandages on my arms. "You fell face first to the ground, banging your head but protecting it from the steam. The only other exposed parts of your body were your arms. The burns were quite severe, that's why they applied a balm and bandaged them."
She takes a long, noisy breath. "Actually, your partner and you were very lucky. It was fortunate that your shield didn't give out until the curse-breaker on call got there and stopped the pouring potion. I am not letting myself think about what would have happened otherwise."
Fleur looks up and sees Hermione's eyes full of tears. Her chest hurts again for a whole other reason. "You gave me quite a scare." The blonde raises her hand and brushes away a tear that escapes her eye. She puts her hand on top of the blonde's and the sleeve rolls up.
The older witch's eyes widen when she sees that her arms are wrapped in bandage too. "What happened?" Fleur manages to say. It doesn't come too loud, she probably didn't even hear her. But the blonde thanks Merlin she seems to understand her, because that hurt a lot.
"Ssh. Your lungs are still healing." Fleur nods, effectively reprimanded, but look pointedly at her arms. "This is nothing." She pulls her sleeve back down. "Your burns itch quite a bit." She stands up, gets the book she left in the other bed and comes back. "As your mate, when either of us is feeling something rather intense, the other one will be able to feel it too wherever they are." She recounts. "I am physically fine, but our connection makes my arms itch. I was conscious and on the verge of scratching my skin off."
Fleur looks down at the book and, of course, it's the book about veelas she gave her. The blonde raises her eyebrows while she wonders if the brunette had already read about the connection she already had sensed they have or she figured it out once everything happened. After all, as far as Fleur knows in the most popular books about veelas, they downplay the connection, passing it as subtle hunches.
The older witch opens her mouth to speak again, but although it's getting better, she still feels her pipes very raw. Instead she grabs her wand conveniently resting on the bedside table and use a simple spell to write in air. She focuses and her penmanship starts appearing on thin air.
"'Did it freak you out?'" She reads out loud. "Absolutely." Hermione confesses, shaking her head. "I didn't have any idea what was going on when I started feeling bad. I didn't think I was hurt, yet I felt the pain. And the worst of all was when it clicked it was you who was hurt and I couldn't do anything about it. I was completely terrified." She rushes out, fidgety. "Lucky I was still with Patrick and I had him call Harry and Ron. I was sick and anxious to get to you and I couldn't even apparate without risking splinching... Patrick is one of the other interns, by the way, good guy." She finishes, her eyes glassy.
Fleur looks down, guiltily. She caresses the brunette's hands with hers, trying to comfort her. After a couple of seconds of silence she speaks up again, a little more calmed. "I was perfectly fine thinking of you just pushing papers and doing research. I mean, the only thing that kept popping into my brain is that time you told me there was a missile from the World War in one vault." The blonde squeezes her hand and shakes her head. "I know, I know that you love your job and that incident was quite exceptional, but still."
The older witch pulls from her hand, rather weakly, and opens her arms to her. Luckily she doesn't put much of a fight. Hermione rests her head on her shoulder and Fleur hugs her to her chest. She takes a deep breath from the mask and finally gets rid of it to whisper in her ear.
"I'm sorry, mon amour, I'm sorry I scared you." Fleur kisses her temple. "I'm fine, love. I'm right here." She sighs and nods.
"Put your mask back on." She says softly, but with authority.
The blonde chuckles. "Only if you lay here with me..." She continues whispering. Hermione yawns. "Maybe we can sleep a little. What time is it, anyway?"
"Middle of the night, actually." Hermione doesn't verbally agree, but she kicks her shoes off and gets back to bed.
"And you were still awake, reading?" Fleur asks in disbelief. She helps letting her slide under the covers of the bed. The blonde shivers a little with the cold air, reminding her that she is just wearing a hospital gown, while Hermione is still fully dressed, but she doesn't care. "Don't you have to go to work tomorrow?" She grabs her wand and gently lowers the top of the bed back down.
"I was sick, they insisted on giving me the day off." Hermione says. "And I couldn't sleep until I saw you somewhat conscious again." She scoots over, resting her head on the blonde's shoulder again and grabbing her waist possessively. "Are you comfortable?"
Fleur waves her wand again and the lights in the room go off, the only light now filtering through the darkness comes from under the door. "I'm perfect." She sighs. Hermione huffs and shoves the mask back into the blonde's face, but snuggles close. And they drift off to sleep.
When Fleur wakes up again, her chest doesn't hurt anymore. She takes off the oxygen mask and gently gets out of Hermione's grasp to make her way to the bathroom.
Fleur checks herself out in the mirror to assess the damage. She looks awful. She has a strikingly purple bruise fading in her pale forehead. She supposes she banged her head pretty hard into the stone floor of the vault. She has the outline of the mask silhouetted around her nose and mouth.
The bandages go from her very hands to almost the shoulder. Fleur unwraps her hand a little and it still looks like she has fallen asleep at the beach with no sun block at all.
A knock on the door surprises her. "Fleur? The healer is here to change your bandages."
There's no use on wrapping her arms back again, then. Fleur comes out of the bathroom and she sits up in bed while a woman changes her bandages and reapplies the balm. "It's looking much better than it did last night." She says confidently and Fleur prefers not to think about how bad it was. The raw skin starts absorbing the fresh balm and her arms itch. The blonde grinds her teeth and tries to resist and she sees Hermione pinching her arms instead of scratching.
Hermione sits on the other bed, waiting to hear what the healer has to say. Next, she listens to the blonde's breathing and she determines that she should inhale another vial of potion through the oxygen mask before leaving.
"Good morning." Fleur tells Hermione once they thank the healer and she leaves.
She comes by her bed and sits beside her again. "Good morning."
"I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror. I look really awful."
She chuckles. "You look really good, considering."
"I think I feel better than I look." Fluer passes her hand over her forehead and she feel the ache of the bruise. "How are you feeling? Did you sleep well?"
"I'm fine." She shrugs. She combs her sleepy hair back with her hands and ties it up in a ponytail. "And I slept okay. I don't like hospital rooms."
"You heard the healer, dear. I'll be out of here today." She nods.
There is a knock on the door and Armand Delacour's head appears in the threshold. "Hello?"
"Papa? What are you doing here?" He comes into the room closely followed by Maman.
"We got an owl that you were admitted unconscious. We apparated to London and came here as fast as we could." Maman exclaimed. "What happened?"
Hermione stands and goes to sit in the other bed, letting them some space. "There was an accident at work, but I'm fine. I'll be discharged today."
Papa and Maman take turns to hug her and touch her, making sure I'm fine. "They said you had severe burns on your arms and your lungs." She nods along, distractedly. "That's huge."
"I just have to inhale a vial of potion more and my lungs will be as good as new. My arms are fine, like a sunburn really, and the balm is really helping." Maman kisses the blonde's forehead and she leans in at her touch. "I'm fine now, so don't worry." Just thinking about her arms makes them start to itch again.
"Hello, Hermione. It's good to see you again." Papa goes around the blonde's bed and Hermione meets him halfway, stopping the scratching of her arms and shaking his hand.
"It's good to see you too, Armand." Fleur smiles at the two of them, but then she notices Papa locking his gaze on the bandages Hermione wears under her long-sleeved t-shirt.
He turns around and looks at his daughter. "So, it was an accident... at work?" He asks, raising his eyebrows. Maman knows that something is up now.
Fleur looks at Hermione and she just shrugs. "Yes." The blonde finally answers. "I activated a rudimentary trap and a boiling potion started pouring from the ceiling over me and my goblin partner. Unfortunately, the steam filtered through my shields." She fixes a look at my father as she continues. "Hermione felt I wasn't fine and she was here by my side soon after I was brought in."
Papa is smiling like a fool now. He looks from Hermione, to me, to Maman, and he just keeps silent. Maman is looking surprised at Hermione, puzzled, but with a rather intense look in her eyes. "Maman, stop it." She is concentrating on her, but it just puzzles her more.
Hermione fishes the string around her neck and pulls the necklace from inside her t-shirt. She carefully picks the feather with two fingers and shows it to Maman. "She was already wearing it when we visited."
Maman smiles, relieved. "Well, that explains things."