"You're safe now."
When Douxie finally woke up, the first thing that greeted him was sound. The crackling of a fire in a hearth. The low, almost unheard vibration of someone purring, right against his side. The slow, even breaths of someone else deeply asleep.
He opened his eyes to an arching stone ceiling he hadn't seen in centuries, and turned his head one way, then the other. Against one flank lay Archie. On his other side, Zoe's head was collapsed onto her folded arms. Her hair was an even brighter pink than the last time he'd seen her.
Conclusion: either he was dead, he was hallucinating, or his escape attempt had worked and he was now safe.
He sniffed, and blinked back the tears. He couldn't be getting all weepy now, he had work to do!
Carefully, gingerly, he pushed himself upright, the blanket that had been covering him falling to his waist. Archie blinked his way awake, disturbed by the movement, but said nothing as Douxie spent a moment regarding the wreckage of his left arm. He allowed himself a minute to wallow-
But only a minute, before he stuffed that down too, shutting it inside his mental chest of "things to be dealt with later, perhaps with alcohol, perhaps never" and firmly closing the lid.
A swirl of magic disconnected both the lines feeding into the back of his good arm. It looked like the IV bags were just about empty anyway. He left the catheter alone, and shifted off the bed, hissing as his bare feet met the cold stone floor. He glared at them. He'd magic up some shoes... in a couple minutes. First things first. Zoe was clearly exhausted. A simple bit of levitation slipped her into his bed. He tugged the blanket up over her shoulder as she burrowed into the pillow with an unintelligible noise.
Smiling for the first time in what felt like forever, Douxie snuck out of the room, Archie at his side.
Archie waited until the solid oak door had shut (softly) behind them before speaking. "Douxie, are you all right? You've-"
"Been through a lot, yeah, I know." Douxie smiled brightly at his familiar as he scrolled through his bracelet. He wanted out of these damned scrubs, and into some proper clothing. "But it's in the past, and gone, right? The future lays ahead of us."
Archie sighed as Douxie found the correct spell and transmuted the scrubs into something a good deal more comfortable: jeans and a tanktop, with a hoodie for warmth (castles were always cold). And socks and hightops for his poor abused feet. All black, of course, because he looked good in black, and it didn't show the dragon cat hairs that always ended up all over his garb-
"Douxie," Archie said softly, "you know it's not that simple."
His shoulders deflated. "I know, Arch. But just... let me have a day, all right? One day before I have to deal with decade and a half's worth of mental trauma?" To say nothing of the physical.
"All right." Archie looked dubious, but acquiesced. He leapt up onto Douxie's shoulder, rubbing his cheek against Douxie's. "I missed you, old pal."
"I missed you, Arch." Douxie ran his fingers through soft, wonderful fur, allowing himself a moment. "So much." Then he hardened his resolve. "But for now, we've got work to do. Where's Merlin? And Jim?"