"Rose. Rose. Look at me!"

Through her hysterical tears, Rose could see someone immensely far away, saying her name from across an abyss, echoing, out of focus.

"Rose you need to calm down," she heard the voice call out, a reverberating refrain.

She tried to fight her way back into her body but her mind had separated itself, unwilling to feel unbearable ache in her chest.

Sam was dead. He was dead and no one had even thought to wake her.

How could she come back to that kind of reality?

.

"Rose, are you with me?"

She felt hands grasping her face, someone trying to get through to her but everything in her mind was static - fuzzy, broken, like swimming through fog.

All she could see was Sam's face; the scar sitting near his right eyebrow, his silvery blonde hair ruffled and unkempt. It cut her to her core.

She was so consumed with him, she was hallucinating his face, so obsessed with the person she'd just lost she could see nothing but what she longed for.

She squeezed her eyes shut to try and get him out of her head, whimpering, "He's dead, he's gone, he's not really here."

.

Then through the darkness she suddenly registered the all-too familiar voice, "Rosie, I'm right here, can't you see me?"

She opened her eyes back up and there was Sam's face again, filling her vision.

Was she on a death plane?

She swung her hands up his face to test if he was real, fully expecting for them to swing right through the air and see his body disappear into smoke.

Instead, they made contact, smacking hard against his cheeks.

"Ow, what the fuck Weasley? What was that for?"

She had just slapped her hands hard into Sam's face, her hands still gripping him as his eyes began to water, smarting from the pain.

She sniffed, "Your… your bed was empty and all made up when I woke up and you were gone-"

Sam groaned, "You barmy git, I went up to use the loo and I made the bed. I'm a fully-grown man, not an animal. I am real, Rose - OW!"

Rose had reached over and pinched him, hard.

"When you're unsure if something's real, you're supposed to pinch yourself!"

But the pinch was really just the beginning of a series of smacks.

"How - dare - you - scare - me - like - that!" Each word was punctuated a slap to the arm.

.

"I thought you were fucking dead Sam! Do you know how horrible that was? Wake a girl up next time."

"You are no longer testing if I am real or a hallucination, you are just being cruel. I demand you cease manhandling me immediately!"

Sam laughed through the pummeling and wrapped his arms around Rose until she could no longer reach to hit him.

She snaked her arms around him too in an iron-grip, and cried into his hospital gown.

"I really thought you were gone," she sniffed and buried her face into his shoulder again as more sobs wracked her body.

"You can't get rid of me that easy, Weasley."

And they stayed there, wrapped together on the ground until Healer Greenleaf came in and asked them what in Merlin's name was going on.

.

.

"He's a picture of good health. The Scrofungulus has completely subsided, he looks rejuvenated and well-rested after the coma, I can't think he'll be staying at St Mungo's longer than a few more days," Healer Greenleaf reported back to Sam's parents, Al and Rose as they stood around his hospital bed.

Sam grinned, "Yesss! Hear that, 'picture of good health', now about this 'few more days' thing Healer. Could we say one more day and call it even?"

Healer Greenleaf smiled but shook their head, "Mr. Malfoy, we will keep you for monitoring until I am happy with your progress and then you will be discharged when you are ready."

Sam's mother Astoria wrapped her arms around him and breathed a sigh of relief, "Mummmm, gerrof me, gerrof me," Sam muttered but he didn't shake her off with any real force.

He knew she was just thankful he wasn't going to die, he shuddered to think about how she would have felt, waiting all those weeks unable to see him, unsure if he was going to make it out of St Mungo's alive.

Astoria wiped a tear from her eye gracefully, "Healer Greenleaf, I can't thank you enough, honestly, and Rose, all the work you did caring for him."

.

"It was nothing Mrs. Malfoy, I would do it again in a heartbeat," Rose blushed and looked down at the ground.

Al ruffled Sam's hair affectionately, "I knew you'd pull through Sam. And now you can finally come watch me play a bloody game of Quidditch! 7 years in the league and you've never come to one of my games! Some best friend you are."

Al harrumphed dramatically, yet still with an ecstatic grin plastered across his face.

"I can't wait, I'm sure you've significantly improved your game since your mediocre Seeking at Hogwarts."

"Mediocre? We whooped your asses enough times to win the Quidditch Cup three times!" Al whined, but he still smiled.

"I am so glad you're out of the woods Sam, you really had me scared there for a while all comatose. Anyway, I've got practice and I'm already late - totally worth it mind you."

Sam and Al exchanged a long hug, and Rose got up to leave too, but Astoria walked over to her and touched her on the arm.

.

"You don't have to go dear, Draco and I were just leaving. We really can't even begin to express our gratitude in your Healing work and assistance in bringing Sam through to recovery."

"You're welcome" Rose murmured, thinking curiously about how she'd barely ever seen Sam's parents.

During their Hogwarts years Rose and Al's parents hadn't ever really wanted to let them go to Malfoy Manner, especially Hermione.

"There is too much trauma and evil held in the walls of that house," Hermione had always maintained, "I don't know how Draco lives there."

Apparently how Draco lived there was by constantly renovating the Manor, knocking down sections and rebuilding, or filling in spaces with earth completely.

It had never been the most appropriate place to visit, what with all the construction, and when they were older, during the Summer they spent more time out in Diagon Alley or muggle London.

.

Meeting Sam's mother now, Rose could immediately see where Sam had picked up his vocabulary and sophisticated mannerisms, they had a lot in common.

Before Rose could say or think much else, Astoria had given Sam another kiss goodbye, nodded her head at Draco and they both left the room, leaving Sam and Rose utterly alone.

.

Rose sat down next to Sam on the bed, pondering whether the timing was right.

She really hadn't been honest with Sam since their whole debacle in Mungo's had started and it had been eating her up ever since he'd awoken and she'd managed to regain control of her senses.

What if he couldn't forgive her?

What if the words they'd exchanged right before he went into his coma were just a symptom of the possibility of death?

What if he was intending to go straight back to India?

Her palms started to sweat and she knew she'd better just try and get it out.

.

"Are you really feeling as well as you say you are?" Rose asked looking over Sam's face, he did look healthy as far as she could tell without examining him.

He nodded, "Yeah absolutely. That coma really did the trick."

Rose's mouth twitched as she tried to form sentences, "I, umm, I wanted to talk to you about what we said before you went into the coma?"

It was unusual for Rose to stutter or falter in her sentences, she'd always been such a fast-thinker, firing back insults and overly-intellectual sentences with ease.

Sam thought to the soft exchange of 'I love you', the conversation that what they had was real… that there really was an 'us' between them. His expression dropped, "You didn't mean it. I know, we were really caught up in the whole near-death experience, I completely understa-"

"No, that's not it at all. I meant what I said, I did. I just… I want you to know the whole truth about me, before we get in too deep. I didn't tell you everything while we were in quarantine. I didn't know how to bring it up, and I didn't want to, because I was… Well, to be honest I was falling in love with you and I didn't want anything to get in the way of your feelings for me, but I know that was really selfish and wrong of me."

.

Disappointment spread across Sam's face, he didn't try to hide it.

He knew he could be completely open with Rose, besides, he knew how much she had always hated his ability to hide his emotions.

Sam's thoughts started racing with the possibilities of what Rose could have kept from him.

What hadn't she told him?

His heart-rate picked up and his stomach lurched nervously, dreading her next words.

.

"I was dating someone before you came to St Mungo's."

Sam's heart dropped, he felt like he was falling off a Quidditch Broom and the ground was rushing ever-closer.

How could he have been so stupid?

Of course she wasn't single, she was too amazing to be single!

"Her name is Aaliyah. We met at St Mungo's around 6 months ago - she's a Healer too. We had been dating for around 3 months before I got caught up in quarantine with you and… I've seen her since I got out of quarantine and you woke up."

To say Sam looked confused would be an understatement.

"You're dating a witch?"