Okay, my dears, this is not something that you can rush through and expect to understand completely. It's pretty dense, so take your time with it to avoid confusion later on.
Songs: Gift of a Friend by Demi Lovato, Rain by Patty Griffin
Ruby and Emma laid side by side in the hospital bed, hands clasped tightly between them. Belle sat near Emma's body with Ruby's soul while Eva dabbed at her injured chest. Snow and David stood near the door with Annabel while Alex climbed all over Batch's bed and Katy kept her from injuring the wolf more. Lauren and Amelia worked on a potion in the basement. Bethany and Henry read quietly in the corner. No one spoke. Either worry for Regina or a general wandering of their own minds kept the words from their lips.
Emma squeezed Ruby's hand and turned her head slightly to look at the woman wearing her skin. "Hey Rubes," she said softly and squirmed a little on the bed, trying to get comfortable.
"What?" Ruby asked, not bothering to turn her head or open her eyes. "Quit wiggling," she sniped.
"I really hope Lauren and Eva can switch our bodies back when that potion is done," Emma answered the question and wriggled on the bed again. "There is dirt in cracks you never knew you had." Emma explained her inability to lay still.
"I hate you," Ruby deadpanned, but a hint of a smile tugged at her lips.
Emma laughed, surprising everyone when the sound infected them with a sliver of respite from the anticipatory anxiety of waiting for an update on Regina. "You did a striptease in my body in front of half the town. This is only the beginning of payback."
"Oh come on," Ruby laughed. "That was funny. I thought Snow's head was going to explode." They all chuckled at the princess' expense. "Did you see how red her face got?" They laughed again, including Emma and Snow.
"Wait, Aunt Ruby did a striptease in Ma's body?" Henry asked, more than a little mortified at the thought of his mother like that.
Katy covered Alex's ears, but she and Batch shared an amused look that almost reached their mouths. Katy snickered. "I suppose that's actually less embarrassing than everyone thinking that Emma blew up the frozen section at the grocery store for no reason."
Emma groaned, everyone else laughed. "Rubes, you've had my body for five days, and my reputation is destroyed."
"I'm fairly certain that's a truth for all of us," Belle interjected. "Sorry, Emma, but I think the town also believes we're having an affair now." Not that she'd had much of one when she'd bolted from Storybrooke just over two months ago. Everyone knew her soul blackened as horrendously as Regina's.
"What?" Emma shot out of the bed. Belle shrugged sheepishly and then spit into a trashcan, the bag rattling with the obscene amount. "And that is fucking gross, Belle. Seriously, how long is your spit thing going to last?"
"It usually only lasts a couple of weeks," Eva supplied distractedly without raising her eyes from Belle's chest. "But for some women, it's possible to last the entire pregnancy." Her head jerked at the cacophonous protestation of nearly everyone in the room. "Hey, fine, ask Addison if you think I'm joking. Personally, I think it'd do you some good," she bit towards Belle.
Belle's jaw unhinged, and saliva dribbled onto her chin. She growled, wiped her chin, and spat again. "Are you saying that I talk too much, Eva?" Belle demanded, offended in the haughty way only a former princess could have been.
"I'm certain my medical staff will be much more comfortable working on a patient who doesn't tell them how to do their jobs," Eva explained nonchalantly, back to her usual spikey self now that all secrets had surfaced.
Belle scowled, but Eva continued working, unscathed. "Scowl all you want, princess, but I can read your thoughts and emotions, remember? You may punch me for keeping my secret after I've finished. You know I'd never have endangered them beyond salvation," Eva clarified for everyone the exact intentions rumbling through Belle's exhaustingly cycling mind. The woman ran an intellectual decathlon.
"I hate chi readers," Belle declared.
"Mama, don't hit Zambie," Alex begged from Batch's bed.
"I'm not going to hit anyone, Baby," Belle clarified for her daughter who had seen far too much violence in her very short life. Alex climbed into Katy's lap and settled down to study her mother. The wounded expression jerked at her heart, and Belle wondered exactly what Ruby had meant when she said they'd have to do better. What horrors stalked that tiny mind just behind the smiles and endless list of questions?
"Hey, got room for two more in here?" Lauren asked from the door, breaking the tension that descended upon them. Amelia leaned on her heavily, looking drowsy and as sickly as Ruby and Emma. Batch tensed again at the new arrival. She trusted Lauren but hadn't met Amelia yet. She remained quite calm and placid considering the amount of people in her room, but sometimes, it felt nice to simply be included in something. Katy touched her hand, and the wolf laced their fingers together immediately in a vice.
"Hey, Miss Kitty," Emma greeted warmly as Lauren deposited the neurosurgeon into a chair by her head.
"Hey, Marshall, any news on Regina?" She asked quietly, and Emma found the strength to open her eyes.
"No, but Granny would have called at the first sign of trouble, so at this point, no news is the best news we have. Who'd have thought Granny would show us all up in the white horse category," Emma tried to keep her tone light, but a sliver of failure poked through anyway. They'd all failed Regina. Granny saw. Well, Amelia saw it, too, but she'd offered Regina the easy fix, the magically solution to a problem that required spiritual guidance and an emotional crutch. She meant well.
"Granny's always been a hero to me," Henry piped up in defense of the woman who had brought him back from the edge of self-destruction after he'd recovered the memories of Belle's war for Storybrooke.
"Me too, Kiddo," Ruby agreed with a nostalgic and appreciative smile on her lips. Everyone fell silent once more, slaves to their individual emotional turmoil.
Emma fidgeted in the silence, unable to cope. She needed distraction from the risky procedure Eva and Lauren intended to perform on them to set them right. "Happy news: my sordid affair with you is no longer the talk of the town," she joked to Amelia.
"Okay," Amelia deadpanned, not quite sure what to do with the information.
"Oh yeah, Emma and my fiancée are a thing now," Ruby clarified, amusement in her voice.
"Okay, so going back to that, Belle, why exactly do you believe the town thinks we're banging behind the wolf's back… who could smell me on you a mile away?" Emma queried, facetious. She tried to find some indignant anger towards the full story, but none surfaced. Who really gave a frilly fuck what this town thought after all the times they'd turned against them when they'd sacrificed everything, even their sanity, in order to save them?
Belle's ears turned red and Ruby stiffened tellingly beside her. Belle spit again, and Amelia gagged. "I cut into people's brains for a living, and that is seriously gross."
Belle cleared her throat, ignoring the neurosurgeon. "Ruby and I may or may not have also been discovered… ummm, in a compromising position near the stock room by Stephanie Lockly who works the checkout counter on weekends."
Emma slapped a hand over her face and groaned, "That's like telling Leroy. Terrible news, The Savior has strayed again!" She yelled in her best Leroy impression, which sounded horrible with Ruby's softer, higher-pitched voice.
Amelia chuckled and took Emma's hand away from her face and held it in both of hers. "Want to go spread one about me and Ruby? I mean, fair is fair, right? She did do a striptease in your body."
"One time. You dance on a bar one time and you never live it down," Ruby exclaimed, but laughter rumbled beneath the words. With the back of her hand, Belle smacked her shoulder from all of them. "Don't worry, Baby, I'll do one for you, too," Ruby promised, eyes opening long enough to wink at her lover.
"Seriously?" Katy and Henry blurted at the same time, mixtures of disgust and astonishment on their faces. From Belle, they expected those offhanded comments, but Ruby generally felt too self-conscious to say anything beyond a whisper in Belle's ear in front of them.
"Preferably in your own body," Belle brought them back to the situation at hand with a firm voice and pointed looked to the two unnerved teens. "Are you confident you can switch them back with the potion Furhan's seer created?" All attention trained on the succubus.
Lauren sighed and nodded, smoothing back her jet black hair. "I think there is a chance. I need to rest first. I've never channeled the entire chi of another person in me before, especially one as powerful as Ruby and Emma's. I'm not even sure that I can without killing myself."
"How can we help?" Bethany asked, finally making her presence known. She lapped up Lauren and Eva's attention like a big puppy who had been abandoned in the pound and finally found her new owners. The two chi wielders had spent a considerable amount of time with her since the switch occurred, since she and Belle were the only two people they knew who could read most of the languages in the library. No wonder Regina kept the library on lockdown for 28 years, she'd brought so many magical tomes.
"Honestly? I don't know," Lauren admitted. Eva touched her hand, and the succubus flinched, self-conscious of her missing finger. Another wound that healed physically without any emotional closure. The seer dropped her hand and returned to her work on Belle's chest as though the moment never happened. The wall between them had grown insurmountably. They loved each other, that much remained clear, but the pain… Eva attacked them with her powers, something Lauren stood firmly against. Sure, it cracked everything wide open, but it betrayed everything she thought they'd stood for, believed in without faltering. Eva faltered.
"Could you absorb some of our chi to make yourself stronger?" Bethany suggested, ever clueless to the emotional moment that passed before her eyes. Belle smiled fondly at the young woman who reminded her so much of herself when she'd first arrived in this world. Her sister lived. Sure, she'd grown up from that tiny thing that tripped over her lacy dresses and chased after her big sister every waking moment of the day… and a few sleepless nights during thunderstorms or nightmares when she crawled into her bed. Had Bethany retained her fear of storms all these years? Belle felt a sudden, inexplicable need to know.
Lauren nodded. "That would help," she agreed with a slight smile towards the young woman. As annoying as they all perceived Bethany, the girl only wanted a family like the rest of them.
Everyone jumped in surprise when Batch shifted on her bed, the whining of electronics bringing her upright. The young wolf hadn't spoken two words since the Swan-Lucas-French-Charming crew invaded her previous quiet hospital room, but Katy's presence continued to soothe her. She'd even thrown Katy's phone back to the sink when something buzzed and obviously upset the young woman who refused to leave her side for no reason except to keep her silent company. She'd stayed involved, though. Her keen eyes and ears absorbed everything from names to tiny little bits of fluff to painfully intimate details that they'd revealed, already accepting the energy of her presence as nonthreatening and, perhaps, inevitable.
She held out her hand to Lauren, eyes shifting self-consciously around the room. Lauren took her hand without pulling on her chi and held it to her chest as she stepped closer to the bed. With the other, she smoothed the girl's hair and smiled fondly at the bravery shining in her bright blue eyes.
"You're hurt, Batch. You need your strength to recover," she said softly in a tone that let the wolf know how appreciated her offer was.
"Wolf," Batch argued and touched her chest with the hand half covered in a cast. She knew just how strong she was. Ruby opened her eyes and met the icy blue of the young wolf who seemed to be awaiting her reaction. Batch nodded at her, an understanding passing between them. She needed to prove herself just as Ruby had, prove she wasn't evil. She deferred to the closest alpha, Ruby realized, and adrenaline zinged through her. With a deep breath, she accepted the responsibility onto her already full shoulders.
"Lauren, just take a little," Ruby encouraged the succubus.
Lauren glanced between the two wolves, smart enough to realize something deeper than her indecision occurred, and opened up her mind to accept the new energy. Batch gasped, and Lauren grinned as the tingling anger of the wolf filled her veins. "My god, I'd love to…" Lauren dropped the girl's hand quickly and stepped back, clearing her throat. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate," she mumbled quickly to the young wolf who shrugged and laid in the bed, eyes already closing in exhaustion.
"You wouldn't be interested in switching bodies with me for a night, would you Lauren?" Belle ribbed the nurse mercilessly.
"Lauren, you can totally suck my chi and get a high when I get my body back. I thinks it's kind of flattering that a wolf can give you a special kind of kick," Ruby offered, wiggling her eyebrows lasciviously, which might have actually been slightly alluring if not for the pallid texture of her skin and greasy hair from the fever sweats.
Arms circled around Lauren's waist, and Bethany peaked over her shoulder. "Will my energy produce such a high?" Jaws dropped all around. Apparently, sexuality ran in the French family. Eva smacked the bottom Belle's chin when drool dripped onto her gloved hand. Belle spit and watched her little sister join the good mood that seemed to have found them. They survived.
"I'm flattered, Bethany, but I need you on that book," Lauren answered just as lasciviously. "Chi sucking can have unpredictable side effects. Exhaustion, sleepiness, delirium in some case." She cleared her throat and rubbed the length of Bethany's arm beguilingly with the tips of her fingers, settling into the good-natured flirting between the other female members of their group. "Other responses in other cases," she explained in an intentionally husky voice.
"Ow! Eva," Belle yelled when the seer ripped at a piece of skin far more roughly than necessary. She glared down at the surgeon, but Eva gave no expression that revealed her inner emotions, least of all guilt for hurting her.
"Nice to know you still care, Darling," Lauren mumbled and pushed Bethany away gently, letting the younger woman know the reaction spawned from nothing she'd done.
"Nice to know your blood still moves," Eva snapped back.
"Excuse me if the first thing I don't want to do after a crisis is jump into bed after watching…" She stopped abruptly, her eyes shifting to Katy's empathetically. Katy smiled sadly. Lauren had given her hope in that hellhole. She'd only loved her, never judged her, told her that the abuse wasn't her fault. Lauren's kind green eyes held hers lovingly, unflinchingly, as Ben raped her. Of course the effects of that lingered.
"What?" Eva snapped, not noticing the shared pain between the succubus and the young warrior. Apparently, Lauren blocked the memories from Eva's view.
Lauren shook her head, dropping her gaze. "Nothing," she murmured, suddenly hyperaware of the room full of eyes upon her.
"Shit," Amelia breathed and squeezed Emma's hand tighter, understanding the interaction perfectly. They'd known those two weeks probably created some of the worst memories of Lauren's life, but the guarded woman never spoke about it since her rescue, apparently not even to Eva.
"Who's next?" Lauren barked.
David stepped forward and wrapped the woman in a hug. "Take mine," he gave permission to cover the emotional support he offered freely. Lauren rested her head against his strong chest without returning the hug, but David's gasp told the room that she absorbed his excess energy without her hands. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on the wall when she turned abruptly.
"Lauren," Belle caught her attention and held out her hand.
"I don't want to risk your pups," the succubus passed on the largest source of energy in lieu of protecting the growing life within her. Belle nodded, frustrated but understanding.
Katy leaned over Batch's bed and stretched her hand towards the succubus. "Take as much as you need," she instructed. Lauren smiled sadly and sucked up the excess, leaving Katy pale and weak. She squeezed her hand for an extended moment and swallowed thickly as she allowed her connection with Katy to linger.
"Mine too," Henry offered his hand, and Lauren gasped a genuine laugh and graciously took the boy's hand but a very small amount of chi. Just enough to know that he'd done something.
"Mine too," a deep voice said from the door.
"Caleb," Amelia reacted first and pushed herself to her feet despite the obvious pain. Pinning that damn woman to a bed proved as difficult as keeping Ruby and Emma in one. "You came back," she breathed reverently, clearly not having expected the loyalty. The man accepted her weak body into his strong arms.
"Did you think I'd give up after one failed proposal?" He murmured into her hair with that adorable boyish grin beneath his scruffy beard. "That would sort of defeat the purpose of declaring my intention of spending the rest of my life with you, wouldn't it?"
Amelia laughed, wiped at her wet face, and punched his chest. "I'm sorry for being such an absolute terror the past two days, but the answer is still no," she confirmed.
"I know. I also know that your behavior wasn't about me but your fear for your friends, just took a few hours of driving around to realize it. I'm a patient man," he promised softly and kissed the side of head before guiding her back to the chair. "Now sit there before you tear something again." He offered one hand to Lauren and rubbed Amelia's back with the other. After a few minutes, he slumped into the wall and slid to the floor. Waving off their concern, he rested his head in Amelia's lap. She smiled down at him lovingly and ran trembling fingers through his thick dark hair.
"Remind me never to piss Lauren off," he grumbled with a healthy amount of respect in his voice. His expression, however, slowly loosened into one of blissful intoxication.
Amelia laughed. "I think that goes for all the women in this room," she teased, but the tears shimmering in her eyes told them all that Amelia's emotions stretched far deeper than the playfulness she displayed. She swallowed roughly and handed the potion to Lauren.
Katy flicked Henry's ear. "You should remember that statement above all else," she warned him. David nodded his head, confirming Katy's caution for the young teen. Poor kid needed more men in his life.
"Eva, are you ready?" Lauren asked without looking at her lover.
"Wait," Emma blurted. "We should wait for Regina and Granny. No offense, but just in case things go wrong." Emma tried to sound forceful, but the weakness of Ruby's body prevented that.
"There's no time," Eva clipped. "Clear the children, please. They don't need to see this." She left Belle's chest half-bandaged and pulled the purple latex from her hands. "I'll finish afterwards. Everyone out," she shooed them. After the first body switch, she left nothing up to fate, which meant everyone but she and Lauren left the room… and Batch in the other bed.
Bethany stayed put in the corner and pulled the dusty tome closer to her, but everyone else kissed Ruby and Emma and filtered into the hallway.
"Wait," Ruby said when Lauren closed the door behind the rest of their family. "I have one last request while Emma is in my body." When no one prodded or objected, she turned towards her friend. "I really need you to strip down naked and walk towards the bed. I really want to know what Belle sees when I walk towards her naked." Though made in jest, the rumbling of insecurity quaked in her eyes.
Emma laughed out loud, keeping the mood as light as possible. Ruby needed far more love and reassurance than anyone knew, maybe even Belle. "Maybe we should kiss, too, just to see what our lips feel like," she suggested jokingly.
Ruby shrugged. "We are the only two of our foursome who hasn't yet." She leaned towards Emma, eyes closed, intent on sealing the deal.
"Uhhh," Emma sputtered and put a hand in the middle of Ruby's chest. "I'll pass. I'm already having an affair with Amelia and Belle, no need to start one about you, too. Don't you think I'm a big enough hussy in the eyes of this town? No thanks to your little display," Emma reminded her, dark glee in her tone.
Ruby huffed and crossed her arms. "It was one dance. I'm sure you've done far worse."
"You put my jacket over Leroy's head, and then he left to go find Astrid," Emma deadpanned and crossed her own arms. "He's like my mother's first in command and now I keep imagining him singing the "Hi, Ho" song in a whole different light." The two laughed, leaning into each other for comfort from the scary procedure about to be performed on them.
"You all need couples therapy," Bethany muttered from the corner.
"What's that, Beth? Me and Belle?" Ruby asked, confused by the offhanded comment.
"No, all of you, the foursome of heroines who are more polyamorous than kings of The Bible," Bethany answered, amusement in her voice. Lauren laughed, and Eva snickered.
"You know, she's not that far off," Lauren backed up the theory. "We could leave you like this, and then you could each sample at your pleasure. Once they got hot and sweaty, too, they'd never notice the fever… though probably should keep Ruby away from flammable things when her magic explodes."
"I knew it," Ruby blurted, allowing the levity of the situation to alleviate her nerves. "You really do want Belle to murder me."
"She could probably drown you in the saliva she's creating," Bethany offered a jab at her sister's expense. A loud thump against the window startled all of them.
"I'm developing wolf senses," Belle yelled through the glass. "I can hear you, and I will defenestrate the next person who mentions my pregnancy," she threatened with a word her daughter undoubtedly couldn't have understood yet.
"What's that mean?" Emma whispered to Ruby who shrugged.
Bethany laughed. "It means to throw one out of a window," she supplied, enjoying the comradery and sisterly threat more than she should have in such a serious moment. Beth wasn't so bad, now that she'd begun becoming an actual person. Little pieces of her personality shone through a bit more each day as she stopped hiding behind her perfectly fixed hair and eloquent language. If her tireless effort to find the cure to their body swap indicated anything, she obviously carried her loyalty in high esteem. It reminded Emma of Belle's crusade to find a safe way to return the proper hearts to her and Regina.
"Okay, let's see if this kills me, shall we?" Lauren brought them all to center once more. "Eva, I think I'm going to pull Emma's energy first. She's weaker, so it should be less to hold." Lauren positioned herself at the foot of the bed and touched Emma's calf.
"Should we risk it, considering we need to break the spell?" Eva asked.
Lauren sighed, shook her head and handed Emma the potion. "What is it?" Emma asked, suddenly terrified once more. The succubus placed a hand on a calf of each woman.
"It's a sleeping potion," Eva supplied in her matter-of-fact way that usually comforted everyone. "I cannot risk sending you into a dreamscape so fragmented, that's asking for something to go awry, but I need your consciousness departed from Ruby's body in order to move it. Once you're asleep, Lauren will transfer Ruby's energy to the correct vessel and I will guide your consciousness while you sleep. Furhan's seer instructed that to be proper procedure, correct?" They all glanced towards Bethany who nodded.
"Is anyone else utterly perplexed by the amount of human experimentation the ancients performed?" Bethany blurted. "No wonder people are so afraid of magical beings." Emma and Ruby nodded, mouths too dry with fear to vocally endorse the young woman's concerns.
At Eva's irritated glare, Bethany stuck her nose in the book. "Once the potion has been consumed, another spirit form can be transferred to the vessel," she read from the book haltingly, translating as quickly as possible. "A chi-eater (that would be our resident succubus) may hold the life force of another in his or her mind and transfer such energies to a slumbering vessel." She stopped before reading the passage about the resulting death of the person a succubus or incubus drained. Lauren already knew the risks to her life force, and Emma and Ruby already resisted enough. That was one secret she felt comfortable keeping for the time being.
"Ruby, one more thing," Lauren said softly. "Once you're inside of me, we may… connect. Do you understand?" Ruby shook her head, too nervous to follow the subtle warning. Eva rolled her eyes, face flushing with anger towards Lauren's absolute need to make everyone completely aware of the effects of her powers.
"It means that we may share a connection similar to the one you felt when you carried Belle's heart. You may see my memories, hear my thoughts, or feel my emotions. I'm not absorbing your energy, I'm literally housing two souls in one body, and according to that book, my powers work similarly to that of a soul seer's. The difference being our connection will create a sort of two-way street between us. It might linger for a few days, maybe a few years, it may never go away, which means when we touch physically, the connection will reopen. Do you understand?"
Ruby nodded. "This way is safer than sending us back into a dreamscape?"
"Yes," Eva answered. "We have more control with this method, and eliminate the risk of fracturing your souls further by traveling from the realm of reality to that of dreams. The risk, in this case, is not to your souls but your bodies, which is why we have all the necessary equipment to revive you at the ready." Eva nodded towards the machines between the two beds – shock panels, syringes of epinephrine, intubation kits.
"Do you wish to proceed, Ruby?" Lauren asked, upholding the moral responsibility she'd placed upon herself.
"I'd rather go my life without hugging you than miss the chance to see my kids grow up," Ruby justified creating such a connection with anyone but Belle.
Lauren nodded and squeezed her calf, comforting her. "Whatever I see, hear, or feel shall remain between us. I'm trusting you to allot me the same courtesy."
"Of course, Lauren. That's not even a question here," Ruby answered sincerely and encouraged the nervous succubus with a kind tiny grin. "Let's do this."
Emma snagged Ruby's hand, lacing their fingers together. She met the wolf's encouraging eyes, took a deep breath, and downed the potion. As Emma's eyes fluttered and closed, Lauren pulled at Ruby's energy, draining her to the point of death and spindling her life force into her own body. Ruby filled her mind, her heart, her soul. The magic in her blood pushed her own life force to the side, filled the space with Ruby's, and then shoved at the already housed energy some more. Gritting her teeth, she nodded to Eva who touched the foreheads of both unconscious women.
"Lauren, on the count of three, pull Ruby from her body completely. I'm with Emma in the room of fire. She's taking my hand. I've got her." Eva provided them with a play-by-play of the magically created dreamscape. "One, two, three." Eva jerked away from Ruby's body, but stayed connected to Emma's while Lauren's hands stayed firmly on Ruby.
"I've got her, Eva," she whispered. "Her body is sleeping, but she's in there."
"Go get Belle," Eva ordered, still entranced with the work she completed inside Emma's mind.
Lauren heard the order, but her body crumpled to the floor at the foot of the bed. Pulling her knees to her chest protectively, she hid her face and wailed uncontrollably. Bethany jumped for the door and motioned to her sister in the hallway before dropping to her knees and accepting Lauren's weight against her chest. The succubus accepted the comfort without reservation. Whatever she'd tapped into while Ruby inhabited her body either scared the hell out of her or hurt beyond words.
"Come on, Emma. We're coming out now, just like before," Eva encouraged the other woman quietly.
Emma sat up suddenly, nearly knocking foreheads with the seer. She gasped for air, coughed, sputtered. She raised her eyes to Belle as the librarian entered the room. A cry of joy ripped from her throat when the slightly blurry image of the woman told her that the perfect vision of the wolf had disappeared when she reentered her own body. She'd never felt such joy of being nearsighted in her entire life. Her thicker hands touched her biceps, flexing them with the narcissistic appreciation of an extreme bodybuilder. She touched her breasts next and sighed harshly. "I have never been so happy to see you, ladies," she whispered to the fleshy mounds.
Ruby groaned at her side, awakened by her lover's kiss. "Keep nasty breasts," she growled in her best Smeagol impression.
"Rubes!" She flung herself onto the groggy wolf, rolling back and forth despite the muttered protests of the woman beneath her.
The spontaneous joy of feeling right again lasted only a few seconds as Lauren's horrid cries continued. Eva dropped from sight, and even Belle left Ruby's side to kneel by the young succubus keening in agony. Ruby looked nearly ready to follow Lauren's example, and Emma stopped her playful wrestling and allowed the wolf to snuggle into her side for comfort. She rested her head against Emma's chest and numbly tossed an arm over her stomach. After a few seconds, silent tears dripped from Ruby's eyes and soaked through Emma's thin shirt.
Emma glanced up as Snow almost entered the room. "Get out. Get everyone out of here, and close the damn door," Emma ordered her mother.
"Katy," Ruby called to Snow without raising her head or blinking. The girl appeared around the corner of the door frame and then shut the rest of them out.
Without speaking, she sat in the chair Amelia used earlier to be near Emma and touched Ruby's waist softly from behind. "I'm here, Ruby," she whispered and emphasized the words with a little squeeze of her hand. Katy met Emma's gaze above Ruby's head, but Emma shrugged her free shoulder and shook her head, telling her daughter silently that she hadn't the foggiest clue as to Ruby's ailment.
"Get off me!" Lauren yelled at the foot, and the three women trying to offer comfort removed their hands immediately and pressed away from the succubus without moving from their kneeling positions.
She clawed at her chest and stood abruptly, nearly knocking Eva over in the haste to find a place in the room with enough air to continue breathing. "Just stay the fuck away from me," she threatened towards all of them, but her eyes stayed locked onto Belle's. It ended in the briefest of moments, but everyone saw it. Belle saw it. She turned away from all of them near the corner at the foot of Batch's bed, chest clutched, head bowed, shoulders heaving.
"Low-ran," Batch whispered, not quite capable of pronouncing her name fully. No wonder the girl barely spoke, she couldn't.
The young wolf lifted her hand slowly as the succubus turned her head over her shoulder to look at the injured girl. In a heart-melting gesture, she flicked her sharp blue eyes to her hand and then back to the red-rimmed green of the nurse's. Shocking all of them, Lauren moved slowly towards the proffered limb and slowly sat beside her. Bowing her head over their clasped hands, she resumed crying, quietly this time. Batch touched the crown of her head with three fingertips of her other hand. Sometimes, accepting comfort from a perfect stranger felt more compassionate. They aren't required to care, they care for the sake of humanity.
Cautiously, Eva moved the round, wheeled stool she'd used while cleaning Belle's wound to the other side of the bed to sit beside her grieving lover. Insecurity and fear rolled off of the seer palpably, and she sat perfectly still while Lauren allowed her within a two foot proximity.
"Eva," Lauren whispered without raising her head, undoubtedly sensing the closeness of her partner's energy. Hesitantly, she reached for her surgeon's skilled hand, reacting with a shudder and harsh gasp when Eva took it.
"I'm here," Eva answered softly and slipped a loving hand around the back of Lauren's neck. "I'm here."
Emma caught Belle's attention over Ruby's head. "I know you're really worried, but I've got her. Katy and I won't leave her. You should go check on Alex and Henry. I'm sure they heard Lauren screaming."
Belle nodded reluctantly and leaned over Ruby's body. "Sweetheart, if you need me, just call for me. I won't be far. I love you." She kissed the hair just above Ruby's ear and then forced herself to leave the room with Bethany's arm linked in hers.
They'd known there would be consequences. Magic this powerful demanded such sacrifices for the simple act of being unleashed. It hurt, but they survived. Hoped lived on. Their pain pulled them closer, healed wounds, sparked forgiveness. They lived to fight another day.