33
NORAH stared at the now-closed door of her hospital room and exhaled a shaking breath, wide-eyed and utterly confused, but…something good had come out of it. Ollie had gone back to Headquarters to give the rest of the Order, namely Lupin and Tonks, an update on her condition, as the two had been alongside them during the incident in Echo Alley and would be the most worried for her well-being.
She would be discharged in the morning and permitted to return to Grimmauld Place alongside Ollie.
And she was…going to dinner with the man, the day after tomorrow, on Friday night, a place of his choosing, some Muggle Italian place he swore by, though tomorrow was their first official night duty as partners, which that in it alone sent an excited chill down her spine.
Now that he seemed to be warming up to her, she wondered if perhaps she had misjudged Brennan, after all.
Her thoughts were pulled momentarily from her mind, which felt like it was reeling and pounding, as she heard Wes exhale a shaking sigh of relief and slumped against the closed door for support, the strength in his legs leaving him as he rested on the floor, not caring her partner would be back soon.
He'd be long gone before then, but she would hear his warning and what he had to say. Wes furrowed his brows into a frown and glowered at a spot on the wall behind Norah's head as she lay restless in the hospital bed, propped up against her mountain of stiff, starchy pillows.
Wes made an odd sniffing noise through his flaring nostrils as he scoffed and rolled his eyes as he turned his head back around to the front, remaining on the floor, unmoved, and fixed his best friend with a hardened gaze.
"Charming bloke, Nor, really," he muttered in an angered growl. "I love how he just stands in the corner and broods," Wes snorted, pursing his lips into a thin line, wincing as he ran his hand along the column of his throat, feeling the red finger-shaped markings where Ollie had grabbed onto his throat and squeezed the air out of him.
He sat for a moment, rooted to his spot. Finally, he'd found her, and almost a second too late. Norah was there, propped against her mountain of pillows, shooting him a furtive, guilty look for how the man had reacted.
A prickling heat had caught in her chest and spread up to her face, wanting to apologize for Ollie's behavior.
"H—he can be charming. On the right moods. A—at least…I think so," Norah murmured darkly. "I hope so if he invited me to dinner. I hope he'll be in a better mood. I—I'm sorry for all of that, Wes," Norah stammered, her kind and quiet tone flowing through the blindingly white room like a soft wind. "He gets these moods," she hissed darkly.
"Oh, I hadn't noticed that about him, Norah, really, he hides it so bloody well," Wes remarked sarcastically, lifting his now-reverted hazel eyes to meet hers. "Jack Brennan's bastard son, Jameson? Really? You—you heard what he did to Rosier a month ago, right? Cursed the man's ear off in a skirmish outside the Hog's Head!" he sniffed, indicating what he'd thought of this development. "I'm sure your father is going to be thrilled. It's almost a pity, he would have made a hell of a werewolf," Wes snarled lowly.
Realization dawned slowly as Norah realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach that Wes didn't know of Greyback's plan to avenge his brother's death using her.
She froze, her pupils dilating and her breaths catching in her throat.
"Norah." Wes spoke again, unable to move from his spot, sensing his best friend's growing discomfort. His voice was very nearly a whisper, hushed and laced to the brim with a raw concern for his friend.
Norah felt like her entire body had gone numb as the fistfuls of blankets she'd been clutching onto slipped from her shaking fingers. Wes noticed his friend's shift in behavior and summoned the strength in his legs to rise from his spot on the floor and stride across the room to occupy the very chair that Umbridge had sat in earlier.
He scooted his chair closer, wanting to help her, not liking how her face was rapidly losing color, turning a sickly shade of green, a cold sweat forming on her brow.
"Don't come near me, Wes. You—you shouldn't be here, you need to go. Leave me," she ordered, her tone angered and full of self-loathing as the mask of calm serenity she'd worn all throughout dealing with the ordeal of Ollie's temper just now began to crumble, and hot tears marred her vision. "S—stay away from me! You need to stay away, Wes!" she gasped, panting, and blinking back tears.
She flinched upon seeing the look of hurt and surprise in Wes's voice as he reeled back upon hearing just how aggressive and wolfish her words had come out just now.
Norah squeezed her eyes shut, not sure why Wes had come. She hoped he'd not come to tell her of her father, though the wolf couldn't ignore the sinking suspicion that, as she cracked an eyelid open, he'd come just for that, then.
"Why?" she heard Wes's tenor-like tones ask, and hearing the faltering crack and the low, wolfish whine erupt forth from deep within his slender, scarred chest pricked at the blonde's heartstrings. She couldn't bear it.
"Because I—I'm a…a monster, that's the answer as to your 'why, my friend," she spat dryly, tears brimming in her lids, hanging her head in shame, her mind struggling to understand why she possessed no backbone when it came to her father. She could run, flee from Greyback and his clan, but he'd just send a pair of his best trackers, other wolves, after her, and drag her back home kicking and screaming.
Maybe if she were lucky, he'd kill her and end her torment of living under the same roof. Not likely.
She almost laughed, a pitiable laugh at herself, though was pulled from her thoughts when Wes spoke up, sounding angered, and yet, he still remained patient with her. Merlin bless the wolf, he needed her, almost as much as she did him. Kindred spirits, Father always called it when two werewolves were much alike in personality.
"Don't talk about yourself like that, Jameson," spat Wes, his own voice hardened as he grew angry as he always did whenever his friend talked about herself in what he deemed to be odious terms. "You're not a monster, Norah."
"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what he was making me do, Wes," she whispered in a faint voice, though her tone sounded entirely too flat for Wes's liking.
He was unsure why her sweet voice held such dread as he regarded his beloved friend, now perched on the edge of her hospital bed in almost the exact same spot the other man had been. He bristled, puffing out his chest slightly at how horrible her new…acquaintance, had treated him, though he shoved aside his feelings of anger, for Norah.
"What's he making you do, Norah?" he asked, reaching up a tender hand and tucking away a lock of her blonde hair out of her eyes and back behind the curve of her ear, though he pulled back when he saw how she tensed. "It's good to see you, Norah," Wes said hauntingly, his voice choking up a bit as he realized how close he'd come to losing his best friend, and Merlin damn Augustus Rookwood and the Dark Lord and the whole lot of them. "You look like shit," he joked weakly, taking a look at the blonde's bruised and battered form.
Wes gave her a once-over with all of her bruises littering her collarbones, the black eye underneath her right eye that would fade in a day or two, thanks to a horrible smelling ointment one of the St. Mungo's old Healer's had given her to dab onto it following her discharge in the morning when Norah went home.
Norah's head whiplashed sharply upward, and Wes realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that had been the wrong thing to say as she let out a low growl.
"Thank you, Wes, I only just plummeted down a hole that was several hundred feet in depth and diameter, hit my head, got a concussion from it, almost died today, and oh, have you forgotten that once a month, we turn into fucking fully-fledged monsters and have to suffer through the pain of having our bones break and shift into new positions only to have them re-snap into place later when the full moon ends? How do you think I'm supposed to fucking look, Wes?" Norah snarled meanly, hardly aware of the vile profanity streaming out of her mouth, which on a good day, she never spouted, especially not around Father, not unless she wanted to get punished, not quite yelling at him, though her voice was raised to indicate her temper rising.
She flinched, growing uncomfortable the moment she witnessed Wes shirk away and back up off her bed, wincing physically at the harsh barb and clipped tone of his friend's otherwise shy and sweet voice that had, up until a moment ago when the other man left the room, been fine.
"I understand," Wes murmured sympathetically, shoving aside Norah's harsh retort to the back of his mind.
Norah winced, pinching at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, squeezing her eyes shut. If she was being completely honest with herself, her head hurt like hell, and she wished Ollie were by her side.
Not that she didn't appreciate her best mate's company, Merlin, no, that wasn't it at all, it was only that seeing Wes here alongside the room reminded her of where her allegiances were supposed to lay, and Norah was reminded constantly of Greyback's plan of stupid revenge.
"Sorry," she mumbled under her breath as she warily opened her eyes and lowered her hand, resting it in her lap, feeling her palms start to turn clammy. "I—I guess I'm not back to my…myself," she murmured. "Forgive me?" Wes pursed his lips into a thin line, biting at the wall of his mouth as he eyed his best friend indignantly.
"Only if you tell me what the bloody hell is going on, Norah," he remarked angrily with exaggerated hurt. "Why did you leave the other day without saying goodbye? What are you doing with the bastard son of Death Eater Jack Brennan? Are you coming back home or not, Norah?" he growled, not bothering to mind his language now that the two of them were alone in her room. "You want to explain all of this to me? And what does Greyback have to do with all of this, huh? And how do you fit into his plan, whatever he's got you doing?! Merlin, just tell me, Nor!"
Norah winced at his choice of language he'd just used to describe her partner, thinking it inappropriate, her mind suddenly filled with inappropriate images of her and Brennan, and she would really rather not let her mind wander there just yet.
"I…" Her voice trailed off as she hesitantly looked at her best friend. Never once in her life in the short now going on almost seven months had she kept anything from the man, and she didn't want to start now.
But Norah wasn't exactly sure how to phrase it in a way that would make sense, much less in a way he'd get it.
After a long pause, she finally found her voice and was surprised to hear the faltering dip as it wavered and cracked as she blinked back tears. "I—if I tell you," she breathed out in a shaking, almost breathless whisper, "will you promise that it stays between just the two of us, Wes?"
"I promise," Wes solemnly swore, a grim expression on his face, though his eyes looked filled with painful regret. If only he could have gotten to Norah quicker, he might have been able to save her falling into Rookwood's trap in the first place, and for that, he blamed herself for her current condition and didn't know how to apologize.
But first, he wanted to hear what she had to say. Wes's face was deadly serious when he brought his gaze back to meet Norah's, whose eyes were downcast and afraid. He stiffened.
This was…not good. Norah was a fearless Gryffindor, born and true. There wasn't much that could rattle the young blonde witch and werewolf, so for Norah to be so visibly shaken was more than upsetting.
"Why did you leave, Norah? What's Greyback want with you?" he accused. "Why did you leave without saying anything to me? I'm your friend, goddamn it, so tell me!"
Wes bared his teeth and slapped his knee, as the other werewolf always tended to do whenever upset, a temporary release and agitation that he too, was feeling, after the side effects of this month's full moon.
Norah let out a sigh, plagued with hating how she always felt grumpy and sour after the latest full moon, not to mention sick, always confined to bed for a few days after each transformation while her bones put themselves back together, not to mention constantly sick to her stomach, hardly able to keep anything else but water down.
Norah exhaled shakily and looked out the window at the thunderstorm now raging war on the outside world, perhaps for strength or perhaps she realized because her best friend was giving her virtually no choice in this matter.
She kept her head down as she heard the words tumble from her lips of their own volition, and it felt to her like her mouth was no longer taking directions from her brain, but the words were out before she could try to stop it. "Greyback wants to kill him. Ollie, I—I mean, Wes. He's…he's asked me to…to…seduce him before he does."
If Wes were surprised at all, his face remained a perfect mask of calm neutrality, though she could almost feel him stun upon hearing her words. And Norah wasn't fooled. She liked to think that she knew the younger werewolf by now to tell when he was angry or upset, and Wes Walker right now was most definitely pissed off.
A muscle in his jaw twitched, from deep within his chest he let out a low rumbling of a slight wolfish snarl, and his hazel brown eyes slowly shifted to golden for a moment before reverting back to their normal hue as Wes let out a hiss, raking his fingernails down the material of his robes.
"Why?" he growled, his quiet voice utterly livid with blame, though Norah knew his hostility wasn't directed at her, but at Greyback. "What's Brennan's son got to do with you? Why's he asking you to do this? I—he…does he want you to mark him before it…before it happens or what? I—I don't understand," he snapped, his tone rising an octave.
Norah felt a surge of a panic flood through her bloodstream, her heart rate steadily increasing the louder Wes's voice rose the angrier he became listening to her.
"Shh!" she whispered urgently through gritted teeth, nervously darting her gaze to the closed hospital room door before returning her attention back to Wes. "Keep your voice down, Wes, please! Someone will hear!"
Scowling, furrowing his brows into a frown, he raised his wand, which had been resting on top of his thigh, and pointed it at the door. "Muffliato!" he murmured softly. A faint haze erupted from the tip of his wand and briefly surrounded the door before it settled and vanished.
Norah breathed a sigh of relief. "Now they won't, I guess," she muttered, still wondering why it was that she felt a twinge of melancholia that Ollie hadn't come back yet. "He—he killed Bryce, Wes. I—I don't know how, but…"
Her voice trailed off as her mind unpleasantly drifted over the events of just the last day and a half, how horribly violent her new Order partner's temper was, and how unpredictable his mood swings could get at times.
She'd witnessed that firsthand for herself, though perhaps the reason she suspected she wasn't quite as bothered by it as she ought to have been, was that Norah could relate.
His behavior wasn't quite out of place for her own personality, particularly in the days leading up to the monthly full moon cycles, and a couple of days afterward, too.
"What are you going to do, Norah?" Wes asked somberly, his gaze solemn and serious as he lifted his head to look at her, having momentarily been distracted by the storm outside the window. He allowed his anger to cool before continuing to grill his best friend for more details.
"I…I don't know, Wes. You're the first one I—I've told," Norah admitted, hating that she hadn't the faintest idea about what to do and how to fix this, and decided to skip the part about divulging the fact that Baba Yaga knew.
She certainly couldn't tell anyone in the Order of this. Not Tonks, not Lupin, not Dumbledore, and certainly not Brennan himself. Besides, what would the man even say to her if she were to confide in him the truth?
She flinched, biting down on her bottom lip. Her overactive imagination could almost picture the conversation in a couple of different scenarios, and each scenario in her mind was more violent and bloody than the last, with Brennan defeating her using some Dark magic that she was sure he'd learned at the hands of his father.
Oh, his father! Norah's eyes widened as she realized, and then she cursed himself for having forgotten.
"Wes," she began slowly, speaking cautiously and careful to choose her words, not wanting an argument to spout up between the two of them, as tensions were already mounted high enough as it was. "Ollie's father's funeral. When is Jack's funeral, have they said? Has it already happened?" she questioned, hoping her voice sounded casual and nonchalant enough, trying to ignore Wes's incredulous he was currently shooting her as if she'd gone insane, and for all Norah knew, perhaps she finally had.
But she wasn't really bothered by it. Norah shrugged away the unhelpful thought from her mind and patiently waited for Wes to collect his thoughts and speak to her.
"Uh, tomorrow around six. They—they were going to host it in Paris, I think, but what's left of Brennan's family demanded Jack's body be brought back to Wales for it." He narrowed his eyes until they were mere slits and glowered at her. "I know that look, Jameson. What are you planning? You can't hide from me, Norah. Don't lie to me."
Norah felt fiery heat scorch her cheeks as she blushed and pointedly looked away, closing her eyes, and exhaling shakily through her nose. Had she really been that obvious?
"I…" She trailed off, feeling so uncertain of how to respond. "I'd like to go. I—I didn't know Jack very well, b—but I could remember seeing him at some of the meetings Father attended whenever Voldemort wanted him there."
The young blonde werewolf had to fight the urge to roll her eyes as she heard her best mate's audible gasp of surprise and hiss through his mouth as she spat the Dark Lord's name with no small modicum of hate and disgust.
"Why?" Wes asked, and Norah could almost detect the faint note of disbelief in the young male wolf's tone. "Jack never treated you with any kindness, Norah, from what little I know of the man. Why in the seven bloody hells would you want to pay your respects to Brennan?"
Norah paused, considering her friend's words. She recollected how volatile his son had reacted upon learning of the man's death just the other night, how his temper had surged to levels that she hadn't even known existed in a man. It had frightened her at first, but then she realized that everyone grieved for their loved ones in their own way.
But what if there was no love lost between them? A tiny voice chimed in at the back of her mind unhelpfully.
Norah furrowed her thin brows into a frown and irritably waved the voice away with a curt brush of her hand. This gesture didn't go unnoticed by Wes, who quirked his brows in her direction, but did not comment.
She highly doubted Ollie was going to go out of his way to attend his own father's funeral, and though the two didn't get along, from what little she knew of the man and his only son, she still felt that, in his own way, the man deserved some small semblance of peace in death that he could not find in his life, and she wanted to offer her respects and condolences. And if Father were going to be there, it was a good time to tell him she couldn't do this.
After Ollie had gone out of his way to apologize and had taken it a step further by asking her out to dinner in order to try to make amends, how fearlessly the former Slytherin had come to her aid when Umbridge had been interrogating her, she'd known right then and there, she was not going to hurt this man.
Norah knew she didn't have the inner Gryffindor courage she needed to pull off a stupid stunt like this, and Father could just get another witch to do it, her own safety be Merlin damned, then.
"Father will be there. I have to talk to him," Norah answered resolutely, lifting her eyes to meet Wes's, and jutting her chin out slightly defiantly as she noticed how rapidly the wolf's face was paling in shock and anger.
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Nor? You tell him no, I can already see him trying to take your head," he asked, raising his eyebrows, though already contemplating Norah's idea, and finding it utterly insane, though something within him started to doubt his own words.
Perhaps Norah was right. The only way she was going to get out of this was to stand up to her father.
Though that didn't mean that conversation was going to be a particularly easy one to be had, let alone at Brennan's funeral. But…but perhaps by choosing to attend Jack's funeral in the presence of other Death Eaters and the man's family besides, he wouldn't dare cause a scene.
At least, he could only hope. He liked Jameson a lot and didn't want to see his friend suffer under the Alpha.
His options fleeing from him before his eyes as he met the young blonde witch's gaze, he could already tell by the way that her jaw was set and how her sky-blue eyes darkened, flashing, dangerous and deadly, that Norah Elizabeth Jameson's mind was staunchly made up, and there was no changing it once she reached a decision.
She was going to visit Jack Brennan's grave, with or without his help. Though something clicked in Wes's mind as he mulled over her idea in his mind. Something he'd almost forgotten until he tried to swallow down hard past the growing lump in her throat and realized how much it hurt. Wes sneered, looking towards Norah's flushed face.
"What about Brennan's son?" Wes growled, unable to keep the note of dislike for the older wizard from seeping into his tone unbidden. "The man's your partner, isn't he?" Here, he spat the word as though it were poison in his mouth, ignoring the flustered look Norah shot him. "You seriously think he's just going to what, let you leave?"
If it was at all possible, Norah's blush that had painted her cheeks a bright rosy pink suddenly intensified.
Wes's face promptly drained of what little color there had been, to begin with in his peaky complexion as realization slowly dawned on him as his friend looked at him pleadingly and bit down on her bottom lip in a slight little pout and batted her pretty little eyelashes at him, the technique she always used whenever she wanted something.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, we are not doing this!" he shouted, rising from his chair, and restlessly pacing the room, as he did whenever he needed to think about something. His pacing was not frantic, but leisurely.
"Please?" Norah begged, shocked at the almost violent reaction her best friend was having, and she hadn't even gotten to her plan yet. "The—the funeral is at six, a—and I don't go on night watch with Ollie until maybe nine. You'll meet me outside somewhere, maybe on the rooftop if I give you the address, and we'll Apparate there and back. We won't be gone long, maybe an hour, a—and I'll be back before Ollie even knows I'm gone. Please, Wes. I have to."
It was the use of the word 'please' that sealed his fate for the other werewolf. Wes barely stifled his groan.
Jameson was begging him now, looking at him with those wide, pleading, almond-shaped bright blue eyes of hers. She bloody knew, the little minx, that he could never resist her when she did that, and he had a sinking suspicion that the further along she went into this new forced partnership with Jack's son, that his bastard son would be under her spell too, whether he knew it or not.
Norah heaved a sigh, an immeasurably sad sound. Her eyes as she averted Wes's gaze and looked instead out the window at the thunderstorm seemed somewhere a thousand miles off, to a faraway place Wes couldn't follow.
Somewhere cold and desolate, devoid of all hope. Norah leaned forward and buried her head in her hands.
Wes paused, feeling utterly lost and helpless, at a loss for what to do or to say to comfort his best friend now.
He felt desolate and strangely like an unwanted presence. He wondered if Norah would be better suited in the company of Jack Brennan's son at the moment, though even just thinking about him made Wes's blood boil hotly.
But he wasn't about to leave Jameson alone to deal with her father all on her own. More to the point, what if that piece of shit Rookwood was there at Jack's funeral?
Wes snarled and gnashed his fangs together in ire, clenching his fists at the thought of seeing Rookwood again. People like him and Norah had been alone their entire life, only surrounded by their own kind, mostly.
Other wolves, though neither of them belonged to a pack. Ostracized from the day they were bitten and turned, shunned by the other wolves for not worshipping the moon goddess, and preferring the company of humans, not wolves, the other wolves in Greyback's clan didn't talk to them, much less give him and Norah the time of the day.
Orphan, outcast, abomination, filthy dog, or in Norah's case, a bitch. These were words used to describe people like them afflicted with lycanthropy, this incurable bitch of a disease. But what had either one of them done to deserve this horrible reputation as a monster, a demon?
Nothing. But their culpability was in their mere existence. Wes let out a low mournful whimper and ceased his pacing, striding over to the hospital bed and rested a hand on his friend's shoulder, compelling Norah to look up at his gaze.
"We'll go," he promised in a low whisper. "But you'll owe me one, Jameson, the biggest Fire Whiskey your Galleons can buy me, Norah. Merlin's Beard, I'll hold you to it. Where should I meet you tomorrow?" he asked softly.
Norah grinned. "The roof of Headquarters. I'll send you an address with someone's owl. I'll borrow one. Maybe Tonks has one I can use," she muttered, either ignoring or not noticing the look of confusion Wes shot her at the young Auror's name.
"Don't be late, and Merlin help us if we get caught," Wes moaned, shooting his friend one last smile as he turned on his heels to vacate the room. The familiar scent of biscuits and parchment paper was flooding his senses in a stronger wave this time, which meant he was back.
And Wes had no intention of being here when he entered the room. "We won't get caught, Wes, I promise, and if we do, I will bear the brunt of the blame. Not you."
Her words gave him pause, and Wes turned his head slightly to regard his friend and shot her another smile and a brief nod to indicate he'd heard Norah's words, though his smile quickly dissipated off his face faster than vanishing Stinksap, and he promptly turned on the heels of his boots and Disapparated with a loud, deafening crack!
Norah's best friend was gone by the time Ollie opened the door, his black hair wild and disheveled, his face looking rather windswept, but pleased to see she was still up. She was surprised to see a single white lily in his hand.
He flushed and glanced down at it before holding out his palm and allowing the beautiful flower to float through the air, where it landed delicately into Norah's outstretched and waiting hand.
"I-I didn't know what kind you liked," he murmured, his cheeks flushing with color before Ollie pointedly looked away, though his curiosity got the better of him and he looked, pleased to see Norah cradling the delicate flower to her chest, looking touched at the gesture.
Norah swallowed, blinking back tears that misted in her eyes, blinding her vision momentarily. This was admittedly the first time any man had given her something so simple and pure as a beautiful lily. It was perfect.
"I—it's beautiful, Ollie. I…no one's ever given me a flower before. Thank you," she whispered, lifting her gaze to meet his, and Norah was surprised to see the beginnings of an unidentified emotion brimming in his bright blue eyes. Though what that emotion was, she didn't know, nor was she sure she could even begin to understand it.
To clear the somewhat awkward silence between them, Norah coughed once to clear her throat and swallowed down hard.
"You… you came back for me," Norah whispered faintly, slightly in awe that he would, considering how exhausted he looked. She felt sure he would have slept at home, or at least gotten a couple of hours of sleep back at Headquarters before coming back to check on her, then.
Ollie lingered in the doorway a moment, scrunching his nose in disgust, and looking offended at the thought that he wouldn't. "Of course, I came back, Jameson," he remarked, eyeing her incredulously as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "We're partners. I'm not leaving you. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. This floor is going to be my best friend until they discharge you."
As he said this, as if to emphasize his point, he gave his wand a sharp rap and conjured a puffy-looking purple sleeping bag. Norah almost snorted, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she recognized those were the same sleeping bags the Hogwarts Headmaster kept in his stock.
He noticed her looking and shot her a somewhat sheepish and mischievous grin. "Don't ask, Jameson, you don't want to know what I had to do in order to get one."
"Are…" Norah hesitated as her voice trailed off as she looked at Ollie as he allowed himself to sigh in a rather dramatic fashion and collapse into a crumpled heap on top of his sleeping bag, not bothering to get underneath of it. "Are you staying with me, then?" She asked quietly, not wanting to sound hopeful, though she felt that way, really.
It seemed like Ollie had every intention of not leaving her side, or else he'd have not bothered to use his magic to conjure the sleeping bag and sit it next to her bedside. But Norah didn't want to get her hopes dashed, nor did she want to guilt-trip her partner into staying with her tonight if Brennan had never really intended to at all.
Ollie nodded, collapsing his head back against the pillow, briefly closing his eyes before opening them again, and looking up at Norah, who was leaning over her hospital bed's mattress, peering at him with wide eyes.
"It's your first night as my partner, Norah. What kind of good partner would I be to you if I didn't stay by your side? I'm hurt. I'm not leaving you, Jameson, so bloody drop it and let it alone," he advised, a slight warning tone to his voice, though his expression softened as he noticed the young blonde witch flinch and draw in a breath. "I'm not going anywhere, Norah. I'm right here where I'm sitting. Or laying, I guess I should say," he sighed, looking at his purple sleeping bag before flitting his gaze back up to meet Norah's. "I'm not anywhere else."
Norah looked a little less shocked but less so than she had expected to be. A hesitant smile crossed her pale features as it wasn't long after that, that Ollie fell asleep, and she watched the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.
All the lines of worry and stress on his otherwise smooth face, save for the burn mark under his poor eye, had been wiped away, leaving his pale skin unwrinkled and smooth. His mouth was tilted upwards in a faint smile, and once she was satisfied the man wasn't waking up anytime soon, Norah allowed herself to collapse back against her own mountain of pillows, letting herself fall into a deep, peaceful slumber, her first dreamless sleep in ages, now that her partner was by her side and she felt, perhaps for the first time in her life, well and truly safe from harm.
She knew that Brennan would protect her, no matter what. And she was going to protect him now, by not going along with her father's plan. She'd save his life.
Just as Ollie had saved hers.