Author's Notes: Hey guess what? I'm not dead! I'm still plugging away at this, and I have been for a while. I have a good 12,000 words written for future chapters...but none of the scenes have been written in order. That is part of why this chapter was delayed for so long. The other reason was my neuroscience class. Need I say more?

I won't. I'll just let you get to what you came here for.

For the first several days, Pipit did little more than sleep. His body was healing, and it demanded that he rest, so rest he did. Not that he could have kept his eyes open anyway; the pull to sleep was too strong. Very quickly, he learned that he couldn't lay flat until his ribs healed. The first time he tried, he couldn't even get up on his own; it was too painful. Sleeping in the lounge chairs was not a pleasant solution either, because he would invariably tip to the side and jolt awake, gasping and clutching his ribs like his hand was the only thing holding them together. After some trial and error, he settled on placing an upended kitchen chair at the head of his bed with pillows padding the now diagonal back so he could lay somewhat reclined. It was hardly perfect, but it was better than any alternative he had found. To say it was comfortable was a stretch, but it at least made it easier to sleep.

Sleep. Hah. After those first few days had passed, sleep became a twisted joke, a seductive siren call that he resisted until he physically couldn't. Every time he inevitably nodded off, he would find himself in that pool of blackness, running from or fighting against some dark figure with the familiar voice he could never place, oil stalking over his chest, coating his neck, surging up his nostrils. It would twist him and crush him and break his bones until he was no longer himself. He would scream and thrash, plead and cry, beg for respite until he lurched awake with his heart thrashing, ribs throbbing, and lungs pleading for air. The horror shows plagued him to the point that he became afraid of falling asleep. He instead chose to hold vigil or keep busy with mindless tasks until morning came.

Oh, how he wished he had something of purpose to do at night, something to keep the nightmares at bay. With his broken ribs and injured ankle, he couldn't very well cover his designated night patrols. Fledge was assigned to cover for him until his six weeks of mandatory recovery time had passed. But with such vivid visions assaulting him each night, he found himself limping along his old patrol routes anyway. At first, he used the crutch Karane had lent him, but it made him sore where the shoulder rest dug into his armpit. So rather than avoid the nightly walks, he instead wrapped the joint tightly before slipping it into his worn out and now burnt boots. He might as well be useful and do something productive. His other alternatives never panned out well.

As well-intentioned as Fledge was, he had not been prepared for the physical strain of taking on all of Pipit's shifts. Pipit had originally signed up for the majority of the night patrols, and poor Fledge wasn't used to going on such little sleep. On his new nightly strolls, Pipit often found the younger student nodding off at his station or leaning against a wall, fast asleep. Ignoring the strange bloom of jealousy he felt as his peer blissfully slept the night away, Pipit never woke him. He didn't have the heart to. Thus, even though he was still technically on medical leave, he ended up filling most of his own shifts anyway.

Karane remained true to her word and changed his bandages twice daily and supervised his chest exercises. If he wasn't outside her dorm by the designated times, she would invariably show up at his mother's house with a basket full of dressings and poultices. She would sit next to him on the bed and tend to the fragile, healing skin on his neck. More often than not, the new tissue came off with the bandages, so he learned to down a red potion at least fifteen minutes before his treatments. He hated how jittery the concoctions made him feel, and though they helped him stay awake for a while, he crashed hard once they wore off. One time, Karane had him do his awful breathing exercises in his house, but the ambient haze of dust attacked his lungs and made him cough so much that he had to stagger outside into cleaner air, just to breathe. He was on his hands and knees by the time his chest stopped convulsing and he could take desperate, ragged gasps.

After that, he made sure he was never late for his treatments again.

Classes resumed a day or two after he had returned with Link, and not a word was mentioned to the other students about why they had been canceled in the first place. Though he was exhausted and sore, Pipit showed up and payed attention the best he could without fussing with the itchy scarf around his neck. Professor Owlan was uncharacteristically tired, sporting dark circles under his eyes and stifling yawns he tried to hide, but he spoke and taught with all of his usual grace and wisdom. Only when the professor moved a certain way did the young knight catch a glimpse of the white bandages beneath the professor's own scarf, hiding the hand-shaped burn they shared.

When Pipit went to check on Link later that evening, Owlan let him sit with his unconscious brother and watch his chest steadily rise and fall. They had cleaned him up and tidied his hair, but Link looked so frail, his pale skin marred with burns, bruises, and bandages. He had not yet woken, and they didn't know when or if he would.

"Is he going to be okay?" Pipit had asked, hoping for an answer he knew he wouldn't receive.

Owlan peered pensively down at Link as he slept. Softly, he replied, "I hope so."

The days dragged by in a washed-out blur. His mother worked, the teachers taught, his classmates studied, and Pipit grew restless waiting. He flirted with hobbies, hoping to keep his consciousness active and drown out the dark whispers in the back of his mind, but he couldn't do much in his physical state. He kept up in his classes, forcing himself to read three chapters ahead in each textbook, but that could only fill so much time. He tried novels, though he had to give those up once he realized they made him sleepy. Thus, the young knight passed many of the dark hours studying loftwings from his father's old tomes, quizzing himself on information he already knew by heart.

Slowly, and with a certain degree of despair, Pipit realized that everyone resumed their normal, daily routines, and life went on around him. He tried to jump back into his previous roles, but interacting with his usual circle left him feeling distant, hollow, and strangely antsy. Most of what he once loved now felt inconsequential, like it had never mattered. He went through the motions nonetheless, plastering on a polite mask, engaging in mind-numbing conversations, and trying to ignore how the shadows in the corners made the hair on his neck stand on end.

It was as if life as he knew it had left him straggling behind, clutching at a threadbare blanket of normalcy that unraveled the more he clung to it. As he continued on with night after night of fragmented sleep and haunting nightmares, he was left with nothing more than tangled, remnant threads, taunting him with that normalcy he once took for granted.

He hoped that if he just ignored it and powered through the onslaught, it would lessen and eventually dissolve entirely.

He was wrong.

One evening, long after the other students had retired to their rooms for the night, he found himself sitting in the academy dining hall, wringing his hands while Karane prepared tea in the adjoining kitchen. She had asked him to join her, though she seemed hesitant and uncomfortable about the prospect. She kept meeting his gaze and abruptly looking away as she filled the teapot and stoked the fire. It was just the two of them. Any other day, it would have been a relaxing time enjoying each other's company. But Karane seemed afraid to speak. What was going on?

Outside, a windstorm buffeted the academy walls. It had picked up earlier that evening, and the beams creaked with each gust. The building's groaning had him oddly tense and uneasy, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why. Several minutes passed in relative silence before Karane came to the table with two steaming cups of warm safflina tea. He quietly thanked her as she placed one on the saucer in front of him before sitting down on the other side of the table. Her petite hands curled around the mug's ceramic exterior, and she stared down into the amber liquid, deep in thought.

After a moment, she said, "I, uh…I made you your favorite."

Pipit nodded and thanked her. He knew she preferred Hyrule Herb tea.

"Honey?" she offered, holding out the jar and spoon.

"No thanks," Pipit politely declined, favoring his straight. Not yet, though; it was much too hot. If he tried to drink it now, it would scald his mouth. He'd have to let it cool for a few minutes first.

And so, they sat. Neither held the other's gaze for long before breaking eye contact. Karane idly sipped, and Pipit chewed on the inside of his lip.

It was odd how she was behaving. Karane was usually a fireball of energy. Seeing her act so meekly made Pipit uncomfortable. Though it seemed she, too, was uncomfortable as she fiddled with a bracelet or traced her thumb over the creases of her palm.

Pipit quickly grew tired of waiting. "What's on your mind?" he asked, intending to sound gentle, but his impatience leaked out into his tone.

Karane opened her mouth to speak, but then hesitated. She stirred her tea for a few seconds before stating, "You've been…on edge lately."

He furrowed his brow and took a steady breath in and out, assessing her claim. "I suppose so," he admitted reluctantly. He did not like where this conversation was going.

"…Do you know why?"

"Probably, yeah," he said, trying to end the conversation before it could truly begin. He met her gaze and she waited, expecting him to continue. He sighed and shifted his focus to the wall, the table edge, the wood grain. He really did not feel like getting into it right then and there. Anything he could say would just sound like complaining anyway. Besides, it was his burden to bear, and he didn't want to put any more of his struggles on other people. Hylia knew that between the ankle, his throat, and his ribs, he was burdening Karane enough as it was.

She was his girlfriend. He was supposed to support her and build her up, to empower her to do great things, not weigh her down with…whatever it was he was dealing with.

"Will you tell me about it?"

And there it was.

He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a nervous breath. He did not want to do this. Not here, not now. Maybe never. But she just kept staring at him, watching. Waiting.

Could he even make her understand? Could she truly fathom the violence he had tasted or the horrors he had witnessed? Wouldn't that just drag her down?

Those memories were his to carry, not hers. It was better to let them die with him.

Maybe he could give her…something, something to get her off of his back without revealing everything his mind kept dwelling on. That could work. It would put her at ease without laying even more of his burdens on her. Trying to gather his thoughts into something guarded and coherent, he stared down into the steam wafting up from his mug, watching the way it shifted as he breathed.

"I, uh…" he started, licking his lips, "I feel…I don't know, stuck, maybe."

Well, that was not what he had planning on saying.

"Stuck?" Karane echoed, lacing her fingers around her mug once more.

He instantly regretted ever opening his mouth. There was no way to back out of it now. Perhaps if he revealed a little bit without going into detail, then maybe she would leave it be and he could go fill his–or rather, Fledge's–patrol.

"How so?" she asked.

He swallowed and wiped a hand down his face. Was the dining hall warmer than usual, or was he sweating because he was nervous? No, surely not. The fire had warmed the room too much. That was all.

"I don't know, I can't…" He sighed in frustration and wet his lips. "I can't go anywhere. I can't do anything. I'm just…stuck here."

Karane gave a sympathetic smile. "It's important that you rest up so you can recover."

Pipit gave a sarcastic huff and muttered under his breath, "Right. Sleep."

Then he froze as Karane made pointed eye contact.

Oh. She heard that. Not good.

"You're not sleeping at night?" she asked, worried.

"Ah, my ribs," he amended, mouth suddenly dry. Was there a glass of water nearby? No, no water. Just tea, he realized, which was still approximately the temperature of lava. He needed to steer the conversation in a different direction. Tracing his gaze blindly along the grain of the table, he said, "I just wish I could do something. I can't fly. I can't work. I can't help with field practice." He rested his elbow on the table and propped his forehead up on his palm. "And I can't do a damn thing to help Link."

"Pipit," Karane comforted as she placed a hand on his, "you've done plenty. You saved his life by going down there."

"That remains to be seen," he replied, perhaps more harshly than intended. Her thumb rubbed circles on his hand, but he barely felt them. His mouth twisted into a frown. Absently shaking his head, he murmured, "I should have gone down there sooner."

He was not expecting the sudden wave of guilt to squeeze his chest, and it surprised him with its hold.

"Don't beat yourself up over that," she replied, trying to soothe his worries. "You did everything you could with the knowledge you had."

"No, I didn't," he said as the regret squeezed tighter. "He told me three days. I waited seven."

Anger began to stir in his belly. It mocked his prior inaction and current inability to take action. "If I had just left sooner, I could have prevented a lot of what he had to go through. I could have stopped it." He paused and tangled his fingers in his scalp. The anger was churning now, rising up from its depths in a destructive squall. "Do you know what it is like to find a loved one in shackles? Have you felt the paralyzing fear as you held them in your arms, praying to all the goddesses that they would have the strength to draw another breath? Have you watched helplessly as some unholy power took control of your best friend and used him to almost kill you, not once, but twice?"

Karane blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the new information. Her brow lifted in sympathy, but with his guilt spewing cutting insults at him, her pity just felt hollow and undeserved.

He leaned in and said in a low voice, "Now imagine knowing you could have prevented it all."

Karane's breath hitched, and she brought a hand to her breast. His nose crinkled in disgust at himself and he tore his gaze away.

The quiet left him antsy and brooding. Her questions were forcing him to realize things he had been avoiding. Things that hurt. Things he didn't know what to do with. Things he hated.

He hated how the shame he had managed to keep at bay now gnawed away at him, fresh and sharp and raw. He hated how vivid, shockingly violent images of Surface monsters, dark figures, and even his own brother flashed before his eyes every time he closed them. He hated the dull ache of his ankle, the stinging pain on his neck, and the sharp stab in his side that he felt with every step, every turn, and every breath, each one a constant reminder of his mistakes, his inadequacies, his failures.

His teeth clenched. He hated that even though he was not Link's aggressor, Pipit still felt like it was all somehow his fault. He hated that he was completely useless right now, forced to sit back and twiddle his thumbs while he waited and waited and waited. He hated that the whole ordeal kept running through his mind in a fragmented loop, forcing him to relive his shortcomings on repeat.

If he had gotten an actual sailcloth before he left instead of a flimsy bedsheet, he wouldn't be hobbling around on a bad ankle. If he had trained more, practiced harder, pushed himself further, he would have been able to hold his own against the bokoblins. If he had stayed focused against the hoard, he wouldn't have broken ribs. If he had held on to Link as they plummeted towards the cloud barrier, Red wouldn't have attacked his own loftwing and stripped it from the sky. If he had warned the professors of the blinding power Link carried, he and Owlan wouldn't bear dark, blistered handprints upon their throats.

He should have been more prepared. He should have done more. He should have done it all differently.

He hated knowing everything he should have changed. He hated not being able to do a Goddess-damned thing about it.

The hand in his hair curled into a fist, and he struck it once against the table in helpless frustration. The impact clinked the mugs against their saucers and caused a cascade of ripples in his tea. Gazing intently into the disturbed wisps of steam, he shook his head again and repeated quietly, "I should have gone sooner."

Karane was silent. Shocked, perhaps. Pipit didn't care. Her hand cautiously found his once more and squeezed it gently, but she did not speak.

He had been trying not to think about anything that had happened on the Surface. Now, he could almost feel the volcanic heat at his back.

For several moments, they said nothing. The wind howled against the windows, and Pipit swore he heard the roar of battle in the swells.

Goddesses above. He didn't mean to hit the table that hard. It was a lapse in control, and he needed to reign himself back in. But with his buried memories freshly unearthed and in a chaotic flurry, control was a distant haze, an intangible ghost. He forced himself to unclench his fist despite the clawing in his gut. A shaky sigh escaped his lips as he brought his fingers up to rub his dry, weary eyes.

Maybe he was just tired. Of course he was tired. It would certainly explain why he was so agitated. Sleep deprivation tended to do that to a person. His knotted shoulders had nothing to do with the angry cries in the wind or the way the orange glow from the fire seemed to consume the rest of the light in the room. He should really just go home and get some decent sleep.

Right.

Just as he was preparing to apologize for his outburst, Karane took a breath in and gently asked, "What happened down there?"

Pipit froze. His heart jumped into his throat, and the scraps of calm he had been reaching for slipped through his fingers.

No.

No.

He would not talk about that.

He could not talk about that.

"You don't want to know," he whispered, echoing the very words Link had said to him. A set of unrestrained shutters crashed wildly against the exterior walls in the storm, each clang louder than the one prior. It sounded far too much like the clash of weaponry.

The conversation needed to end. It needed to be over. It needed to be done.

Karane bit her lip and broke eye contact. Hesitantly, she continued, "I figured you would say that, but you should know that sometimes it can be helpful to…to talk about–"

"No–" he tried to interrupt, but she didn't stop.

"–things like this. You know, to get it off your chest and start to process through it all–"

He ran his fingers back through his hair and tried to slow his breathing. "Karane, I don't–

"–because if you don't talk about it, it tends to build on itself until it–"

Crash!

Karane startled and yelped in surprise. He was standing, he realized, gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, jaw tight. He took shallow breaths in and out through his nose. His heart pounded in his chest. Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom. His stool lay on its side against the tile.

He couldn't do this. It was too much. It was too much.

"…Pipit?" Karane asked, her voice small and scared, "Are you okay?"

For a moment, he couldn't do anything but stare wide-eyed into the still-steaming beverage he had never brought to his lips. Once he could force words past the vice in his throat, he swallowed and said in the steadiest voice he could muster, "Thank you for the tea."

Then he turned stiffly and limped off, leaving his mug untouched, his stool overturned, and his confused and startled girlfriend sitting at the table alone.

His nightmares that night were particularly vivid.

Author's Notes: Not a the longest chapter, I know, but it's something. FFnet was glitching when I was trying to upload the document, (half of every sentence mysteriously went missing...) so if you find any mistakes, please let me know and I will fix them. Edit: All of the hyphens have now been corrected to dashes, and all of my italics are back where they should be. Formatting. Yeesh.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate all of your comments and reviews, so keep them coming! They do wonders when I am in a bad place.

Love love love, friends.

Shnarf