Sophie sat on the edge of her cot, her hand gripping Keefe's, which hung limply from the cot right next to hers. Keefe's hair was plastered to his forehead, which was to be expected considering Keefe had been in a coma for a month. Regardless of this, Sophie still thought Keefe was as cute as ever... wait what? Where did that come from? She quickly shook the thought from her head. She knew if Keefe had known what she was thinking, he would say, "I knew you couldn't resist the Keefester!"
Sophie blinked back her tears, resisting the temptation to cry again. It felt like that was all she'd been doing for the past month. In fact, she'd barely left the Healing Center at all. Only a few times a week to go home, shower, and grab a change of clothes. Other than that, she practically lived at the Healing Center now. If Keefe knew this, he would've said, "Aw, Foster, I knew you loved me."
"Stop it, Sophie", she thought to herself. "Thinking like this only makes it hurt more".
"Good morning, Sophie," Elwin said, snapping her out of her reverie. "How're you doing?"
"Hey, Elwin. I'm doing as well as I can, I guess," Sophie said softly.
Elwin smiled sadly in response. "Did you sleep well at least?".
"Yeah," Sophie said. And then she yawned. She could imagine Keefe saying, "You do remember you can't lie to an Empath, right?"
Suddenly, Sophie jumped off the cot, releasing Keefe's hand, and yelled, "I can't do this anymore!"
Elwin looked up, startled. Ro burst through the door, asking, "What happened? I heard yelling. Is our favorite Lord Hunkyhair awake?"
"If Keefe was here, he would say... AH STOP IT SOPHIE!" She thought to herself. "This needs to stop, now!"
"I wish," she said out loud, a noticeable twinge of sadness in her voice. "But no. I was yelling because I can't just sit here and do nothing anymore. There HAS to be a way for me to help Keefe." She paused for a moment, thinking. "I have to inflict on him."
Ro and Elwin glanced at each other, confused. "Uh... didn't you already do that?" asked Elwin
"Yeah," added Ro. "Like three times."
"I know," said Sophie, "But I think I know what I need to do differently. The last few times, I inflicted happiness, but with happiness from my OWN memories. But what if I can gain a stronger response from his mind by inflicting happiness that comes from HIS memories?"
Elwin didn't look convinced. "I don't know, Sophie. Have you ever done that before?"
"No," Sophie replied. "However, this is the only thing I haven't tried. So I have to. For him,". Her voice broke on the last two words.
Ro hesitated for a moment, but must have seen the devastation on Sophie's face, because she said, "Ok, Blondie. We can try. And I have something that I think can help you."
She reached into her armor, presumably into some sort of secret hiding compartment (which Sophie was not the least bit surprised about), and pulled out a few notebooks. Sophie saw the familiar green, silver, brown, and gold notebooks that Keefe had started recording memories in.
"Why do you have those with you?" Sophie asked curiously.
"I knew that Lord Snootypants would take this opportunity to snoop around Lord Hunkyhair's room, so I took these for safekeeping. The only reason I'm showing these to you is because if you need happy memories of his, then these will do the trick," Ro replied.
"Oh, I've seen the brown notebook before," Sophie said. "That's where he kept his good memories, right?"
"Some of his happy memories, yes. But a lot of them, the happiest ones, are in here." Ro grabbed the golden one, holding it out to Sophie.
"Why didn't he show these ones to me before?" Sophie wondered, reaching out to take it from Ro.
"You'll see," was the reply. Then Ro added under her breath, "And maybe you'll finally stop being so oblivious."
"What?" asked a confused Sophie, not hearing the last part.
"Just open the notebook, Blondie!"
Slowly, with shaking hands, she opened up the notebook. Immediately, she gasped. In the image, a figure with blond hair was sitting on the ground. And she realized it was her. It took her a moment to remember the time and place, and she realized it was the first time she had met Keefe. She was in Keefe's ditching spot. This must be Keefe's first memory of her. She flipped the page. The first thing she noticed was the Four Season Tree. Then she saw herself, as well as Dex, lying on the ground. It was the moment that her friends had found her, alive rather than dead as they had previously thought. She flipped the page again. And continued to flip. She saw her and Keefe riding on Silveny towards the caves. There was the window sleepovers they had during their time at Alluveterre. The moment Keefe found her at Lumenaria when disaster had struck. Her and Keefe sitting on the staircase at Havenfield, her promising he had people who cared about him. Countless memories, and in each and everyone of them, there was one, undeniable theme: her. Suddenly, the images stopped. There were still a couple of empty pages left. Sophie flipped to the end, about to close the notebook, when words on the final page caught her eye.
I love you, Sophie Foster.
Sophie froze, trying to comprehend the words. She thought back to all the memories she had of Keefe, of the ones that had been in the notebook, and also others. Memories of every time Keefe hugged her, the warm feeling that surround her when he told her it would be alright. Memories of Keefe squeezing her hand, the calm that rushed over when she was reminded he was there. Memories of the gratefulness she felt when Keefe supported her, no matter what. Memories of Keefe's broken expression whenever he felt like he wasn't enough, and the sadness Sophie felt when she had to convince him that he was. Because he really was. He was more than enough. He was... everything.
She sprinted over to Keefe's side, and grabbed his hand. With no hesitation, she delved into his mind.
"Keefe?" she transmitted into his mind. "I don't know if you can hear me. But I really hope you do. Because you need to come back. We all miss you. We all need you. I need you." Then, she took every ounce of strength she had left, and started to inflict.
She inflicted the happiness she had gleaned from his drawings, the comfort, the love. She added her own emotions, all the feelings she had gained as she thought back to everything she had gone through with Keefe. She even inflicted the sadness she felt, since Keefe wasn't with her. She inflicted every single thing she possibly could. And together, they melded into one single emotion; one single feeling. This feeling was light and dark. It was happiness and sadness. It was joy and anger. It was all the colors of the rainbow. It was easy, and it was hard. It was everything she could possibly feel. She didn't yet understand what this feeling was. Is it love? Maybe. But she wasn't sure. All she knew is that it was overwhelming, but at the same time, she couldn't imagine life without it. Was she scared of what this meant? Definitely.
But all of these worries didn't matter. Because when she stared into those ice-blue eyes as they fluttered open, she knew. Because this feeling was him. Because this feeling was her. Because this feeling was them. No matter what happened, no matter what this all meant, it would all be ok. Because with him, it would always be ok.