Cana and Bacchus ran into the ICU, looking around for what had caused the scream that had pulled them from their cupboard. The first thing they saw was Gajeel sitting next to Levy's bedside, hand clasped over hers and they realised if there had been any danger he would have reacted to it already. Cana looked around, spotting a new person in the room. The dark red hair was alien to her, and it was only the person in the bed he was sat next to that gave her a clue as to who it was. She walked over, standing next to the man and unsure what to do. He kneeled on the floor, face pressed into the blankets as he sobbed so heavily each breath wracked his entire body. She looked up at the nurse that had run into the room behind them and mimed that she was doing fine with calming the Dragon Slayer down. The nurse left the room again, muttering to herself and Cana turned back to the man on the floor. If it had been any member of Fairy Tail she would have wrapped them up into a hug, but it wasn't. Instead, she rested an arm on his shoulder, only for it to be shrugged off in seconds.
"Don't. I can't... I can't trust myself to control the poison right now. My skin could become toxic any second. Don't put yourself in danger for me."
His voice was cracking as he spoke barely above a whisper, and Cana kneeled down on the floor next to him. His sobbing had turned to keening, and the noise shot straight through her and made tears well up in her own eyes.
"You're Cobra, right? I could find you some gloves, or something to block your magic so you can hold her hand?"
His head shook on the bed, but it took him a couple of minutes for the crying to cease to a point where he could speak.
"It won't help. These burns are from my poison, and I've seen the pain in people's eyes when they're touched, up to a week after they've been inflicted. I can sense she'd been covered in them, there's not a single fucking inch of her skin that isn't damaged."
There was a hiss from the next bed over as Gajeel retracted his hands away from Levy's, her skin almost as covered in burns as Kinana's. Cobra didn't notice and carried on with his own lamenting.
"I can't even fucking hold her. I can't let her know I'm here."
Cana couldn't think of what to do, just stared at the back of his head as he lay as close to Kinana as he could without touching her, both of his hands clenched so tightly in the blankets that his nails tore through the fabric. She looked at Kinana's face, covered in ugly welts which had started to turn purple and bruise underneath. The nurses had assured her they would be able to get rid of them completely with the right amount of healing magic, but for the time being there were more pressing injuries to focus on. Cana wanted to talk to Cobra, wanted to take his mind off what was happening but didn't know how. In the end, she ended up saying the first thing that came into her head.
"She really misses you, you know."
His shoulders tensed, but his sobbing abated slightly. She took it as a good sign and continued to talk.
"She doesn't say it, but she doesn't have to. You can see it in the way she looks at the other couples and the way she perks up when someone mentions Crime Sorciere. I think..."
She heard a growl erupt from his throat, and slammed her mouth shut. Obviously, he didn't want her talking about them.
"No... I'm sorry, that's not what I meant." His voice was quiet, making her strain her ears and a wave of panic washed over her when she realised he could hear exactly what she was thinking.
"I don't want you to stop. Please, keep talking. Just. Quieter. I need to hear her when she wakes up."
Cana nodded, dropping her voice down to a whisper, knowing he could hear her.
"You should come and visit us sometime. Jellal is over so often I'm sure Master wouldn't mind. We can get the Strauss' to cover the bar and you two can join us for drinks. Or, you know, I could get Erza to go on a long job and the two of you could lock yourselves in her dorm and not come out for a week."
She heard him snort and smiled to herself. She continued to talk, about everything and nothing at all, just trying to distract the Dragon Slayer from what was happening in front of them. He occasionally snorted, but mostly kept his attention on the girl in the bed. At some point, his hand had moved up into her hair and he started to twirl the strands around in his fingers. She didn't know how long she stayed there, talking to him about life in Fairy Tail until the master entered the room and addressed everyone who was awake.
Bacchus stood in the doorway of the room, staring at the Iron Dragon Slayer in front of him. He hadn't seen the man since they had taken down Lin together, and he looked tired. There were heavy bags under his eyes and Bacchus wondered if he had even slept since they had got there. Gajeel's nose twitched, and Bacchus froze as he realised he other man could smell what he had been doing with Cana minutes before. Intense guilt washed over him, he hadn't expected to be found out let alone by Gajeel of all people.
"I…"
The Dragon Slayer waved his hand, shrugging and turning back to look at the blue haired girl on the bed.
"Don't worry, I don't blame you. Sorry about your nose, by the way."
Bacchus touched the bandage that covered his nose. Someone had offered to use healing magic to heal it completely, but he had insisted they used it on one of the injured mages instead. The healing magic was hard enough to come by as it was. Bacchus grabbed one of the spare chairs that had been abandoned near the entrance to the room and pulled it up beside Gajeel. He looked like he could use some company, and Cana was currently trying to calm the other Dragon Slayer in the room.
"Hey, no need to apologise. I wasn't gonna be winning any beauty contests anyway. How's she doing?"
Gajeel hung his head down lower, and Bacchus could hear a sigh from deep in his throat. He looked down at his gourd and offered it to Gajeel to try and help him through trying to describe the girl's injuries.
"I'm not technically meant to have this in the hospital, but I thought you might want it to take the edge off, you know? Dunno how well you're taking this, I know how I would feel if Cana was, you know…"
His voice trailed off as he was unsure exactly how to word what he was thinking. Gajeel suddenly hissed, pulling his hand away from Levy's and Bacchus stared in confusion until the Dragon Slayer looked at him, taking a deep breath as he did.
"I'm okay, but thank you. She's doing better, the nurses say she's out of danger for now and they're just keeping her in a coma so she can heal further. Her magic is regenerating slowly, but the majority of her energy is going into healing her body right now."
Bacchus nodded, looking around the room trying to work out what to say. He had never really been the type of person who knew how to console others, and it was even more difficult with someone who was watching his whole world lie in a hospital bed, covered in burns and fighting for her life. He drummed his fingers on his knees impatiently, clutching at straws, before realising that he might like to hear some good news from the others in the guild.
"Some of the guys are starting to wake up. Lucy and Wendy are up and talking, and Pantherlily is looking after the other two Exceeds. You can see Cobra is awake, and the nurses have said that they don't think it's going to be long before the others are up as well. And, you know, the more people are up and healed the more healing magic they can spare for Levy."
Gajeel nodded, he had leant over and began to stroke Levy's forehead, one of the only places she hadn't been burned by Cobra's poison. Bacchus struggled for something else to say before Gajeel solved the issue for him.
"Have you heard from the Council?"
The drunken mage sighed, he knew the information he had was not what Gajeel wanted to know.
"Yeah. They've taken him in and are treating him at the moment. He hasn't woken up yet, we did a bit of a number on him. Your Master has been stuck talking to them for a while so I guess he is going to tell us as soon as he wakes up."
"He's awake."
Bacchus spun around to see the older man walking into the room and waited until everyone's eyes were on him.
"They're about to take him into questioning and I am going to go and attend. I just wanted to ask if you could stay here for a little while longer and organise for me, Bacchus?"
The mage nodded, and stood to return to the office with Makarov. Cana looked at him, asking him silently if he wanted her to help but he shook his head. It looked like the other Dragon Slayer needed her for a little while longer yet. They walked back along to the office and Makarov looked up to him.
"Thank you for this, Bacchus. If you need to go back home I could get someone from the guild hall to come over here."
Bacchus shook his head. Cana had left some of the other fighters at the guild hall for a reason. If it became popular knowledge that the majority of Fairy Tail were currently out of action a fair few dark guilds would spring up out of seemingly nowhere to take them down.
"You'll get in touch with us as soon as he says anything? I'm sure everyone wants to know what he says."
Makarov nodded, holding the door to the office open so Bacchus could enter. Bacchus stepped into the office, returning to the desk and grabbing the lacrima which had already started to ring. Makarov looked concerned but Bacchus waved him away. They would need someone on the inside of the council for unbiased information anyway, and he could think of no one better than Makarov for that. He watched the Guild Master leave and decided he would ask one of the nurses to wheel a bed into the office. Cana could do with some rest while he sorted this out.
Rogue's eyes blinked open, and he swallowed the panic that was threatening to erupt from his throat. There had to be a logical explanation for this. He could feel needles tugging at his skin, and by the look of the ceiling, he was in a hospital and not some weird torture dungeon like he had been before. Someone had got them out. He inhaled through his nose and smelt Sting close to him and as he tilted his head to the right he could see a shock of blonde hair laying on the pillow of the bed next to him. He allowed himself to sigh. Sting was ok.
He looked around his bed, finding a red button lying on the table next to him. He should call the nurses, tell them he was awake and try to find some information as to what happened. He needed to make sure that Frosch was ok as well. It was only a few seconds after he pressed the button that a nurse came in, looking confused as she made her way over to the bed.
"Did you press the button?"
Rogue looked up at her in confusion. Of course he had pressed the button, what else would he have done? The nurse must have seen what he was thinking as she spoke to him as she started to read the numbers on the front of his machine.
"It's just that you're the first person to actually tell us you'd woken up. One girl freaked out, and two others went AWOL. It makes a nice change. How are you feeling?"
Rogue tried to sink into the bed, disappointed when he felt only one pillow beneath him. He assessed his body quickly as the nurse slipped a blood pressure cuff over his arm and formulated a response.
"I feel a bit drained but other than that I'm fine. Have you heard from my guild?"
The nurse wrote down more numbers from the machine and smiled at him. Anywhere else he would have walked away and ignored her, but right now he needed information from her.
"Miss Alberona contacted them as soon as you came in here. She said to tell you that the rest of the guild, including Frosch and Lector are safe. They were going to make their way over to the hospital but Miss Alberona suggested it might be wise for them to stay there in case there was a larger plot behind this man's actions."
Rogue nodded, despite the strength in the rest of the guild if someone found out the two resident Dragon Slayers had been taken out they might feel like they could attack the guild. The rest of the guild should be able to hold it down just fine, but for safety, he would rather the other powerhouses hadn't left the guild hall. There was just one more thing he was worried about.
"One last question, could you tell me how Sting is? He's my… He's…"
"Your twin, I know."
The nurse smiled down at him, and Rogue could feel himself blushing. His fingers started to play with the edge of the blanket, and the nurse continued with her explanation.
"I saw the two of you in the Grand Magic Games. You were pretty incredible, if I may say so myself. He's doing well, he should be up soon. You two are so close we couldn't discern which would wake up earlier, you know. That's the thing with twins I guess."
Rogue winced as she pulled the needles from his hands and covered them quickly with plasters. He knew Sting would have corrected her immediately, but he wasn't about to shout out about their relationship to this woman he had never met.
"Yeah, he's my twin. We'll leave it at that."
The nurse ignored his mumbling and continued to test various vital signs as she switched over his sensors. After a while, she placed everything back onto her cart and addressed him directly.
"I think we're going to want to keep you in for a while longer, just to make sure there aren't any long-term side effects, but you should be ok to walk around a bit if you feel up to it. The canteen is down the hall to the left, and the room directly to your right is being used as an office by Fairy Tail so you should be able to contact your guild. I'll send a doctor around to test you and see if you can be released as soon as one is free."
Rogue nodded. He wasn't quite up to walking that far yet, but it was good to know he could call his guild whenever he wanted. All that mattered to him now was getting Sting back to full strength.
A/N - Two quick notes on this one. Firstly, this fic is now over 150,000 words long. I. I can't deal with this. Secondly, in this version of the universe the former members of Oracion Seis broke out of jail of their own accord and was later found by Crime Sorciere. I got my timelines in a twist and forgot they didn't join Crime Sorciere until midway through the Tartoros arc. It will come into play later on. I'm sorry for my dim.
