Note: This is a "bonus" chapter of sorts. I intend to publish the actual chapter on Christmas, but I wanted to give you guys something to tide you over. Note that this takes place before the series.
When she didn't feel well, such as when Magica's attacks grew too much, she hid. Magica would punish her for hiding and not seeking out Webbigail to manipulate, but Lena was too weak usually to heed her summons. As a result, she huddled in a ball and waited it out. Her mouth was dry and cramps riddled her midsection. Hugging her knees to her chest, she rocked back and forth and whimpered.
Her hideout wasn't much more than a hole in the wall where an old apartment building used to stand. It had bare hardwood floors and a tattered chair. Instead of a bed, she lay atop a pile of blankets and rested her head on a coat she'd balled into a pillow. She knew she ought to get a few more decorations, but it'd distract her from her mission. And besides, when she crashed here, it was because she didn't have the strength to make it back to McDragon Manor.
"Wow, this place is the pits," a familiar voice said and Lena lifted her head. Dewey and Webby were standing in the middle of the dusty floor and their feet left tracks. As this loft was at the very top of a ten-story abandoned apartment building on the edge of town, she was impressed they'd gotten up here. The only set of stairs that reached the loft had been ravaged by fire and therefore, were unstable. Magica often remarked that Lena might break her neck ascending to her loft. The thought alternatively had amused her aunt and irritated her because she didn't want anything to happen to her pawn until she had what she wanted.
"Lena? Are you in here?" Webby called.
How had they found her? She hadn't left a trail, had she? She tried to remember where she'd first met Webby, but the band about her head was making thinking difficult. She tasted blood and spat out a globule. Lena's makeshift bed was tucked into a corner of the room where she might be easily overlooked. When she was injured, such as now, she preferred to act like a cornered animal, seek shelter, and hide until the pain passed.
"I hear something," Dewey said. Why had she brought him? Lena groaned, rolling over, and something stuck in her throat. She coughed up more blood and hugged herself as pain wracked her body. Perhaps this was more than Magica's doing. Magica dealt with the head, which explained her massive headache, but not the pain in her chest.
"Lena? We're respecting your privacy by calling out to you but checking in on you because we love you by coming in anyway," Webby called and Lena snorted. That soon turned into another coughing fit and Webby's head turned in her direction. She beckoned Dewey over and the two knelt at her side.
"Wow...you don't look so hot…" Dewey said. Webby pressed a palm to Lena's forehead and then hissed, pulling it back.
"You're burning up," Webby said. She frowned at her best friend. "We haven't seen you for two weeks and we were getting worried."
Two weeks-had it been that long? Lena had lost track of the days. She'd been passing the time in a fever haze. For some reason, despite the blankets she heaped on and the hot shower she'd rigged with magic, nothing seemed to warm her. Her teeth chattered and she was cold, so cold. It'd make sense that she had a fever.
"Her eyes are glazed," he remarked. "Lena, can you hear us?"
"Of course I can hear you-" she started and then collapsed, coughing again. Webby pulled her into a tight embrace and Lena noted dully the blood that splattered the floor from her coughs. While her best friend was alarmed, Lena felt a dull resignation. She was too depressed to care that she might be seriously ill. Magica had wreaked havoc on her mind again and she felt like she was trapped. The situation would never change, things would never get better, and she'd be doomed to spend her entire life doing Magica's bidding until the old bitch died if she ever did. With Lena's luck, Aunt Magica would outlive her.
"We should bring her back to the manor," Dewey said and he sounded worried. "Between the fever, the bloody coughs, and her shivering, she's in awful shape."
"Why didn't you call me when things got this bad?" Webby reprimanded, wagging a finger at her. "You have a phone."
Lena's lips quirked. She couldn't recall what she'd been thinking, although preventing Webby from coddling her had been among the thoughts she could vaguely remember. Webby was stroking her hair and it felt so good, so relaxing, that Lena had problems following her conversation with Dewey. The two talked as though she wasn't there, which she wasn't. She was drifting somewhere and it seemed pleasant enough. Magica wasn't pestering her and she could float away into oblivion.
"We'll fly her back. It's faster," Webby said, the first words to penetrate the fog in her mind. Lena blinked.
"I'll fly on your back and hold her up so she doesn't fall off," he volunteered and Webby nodded.
"I don't need your help," Lena slurred. Her tongue was thick and she felt like she had lost control of it. Perhaps that accounted for the next few words she spoke. "I'll die here. S'fine."
Webby objected, but Lena didn't hear what she said, per se. The darkness tugged at her again and this time, Lena embraced it as an old friend. She let it carry her away and nothing, not their shouts nor their shaking, could bring her back.
"I'm worried about Lena," Webby said. They'd brought the teenager back to the manor with them and Calente was examining her now. He'd shooed her and Dewey out of the room and Webby rocked back and forth on her heels in agitation. She couldn't stand still and her gaze flicked to the infirmary, where Cal was treating Lena. They were across the hall from it; she'd refused to go much further and Dewey had, of course, stayed by her side. He was stalwart and loyal like that.
"With what she said, it almost sounded like she wanted to die," Dewey said, shuddering. "What's going on with her?"
"I don't know. She's keeping secrets from me."
Frustrated, Webby paced and then pivoted, doubling back on herself.
"Who'd want to stay in that hole in the wall?" he asked. "No wonder she normally sleeps here."
Webby scowled. The way Lena had purported herself, she had seemed suicidal to Webby too. It was alarming and made her want to rush back in there and tell her over and over that she was loved and wanted. Of course, Lena wasn't conscious, which would make that difficult, but not impossible. Webby had heard that sometimes people could hear what you said even when they had fainted and it could tether them back to reality.
"She looked so miserable…" she whispered and hugged herself. Dewey wrapped an arm about her waist.
"Calente will fix her. You'll see."
Assuming she wanted to be fixed. Webby shuddered again and, unable to wait any longer, she burst toward the infirmary door, which was locked against intruders. Growling, she breathed in, preparing to launch her fire breath, when Calente opened the door and took the wind out of her proverbial sails. He scowled at her.
"She's asleep," he told them. "Don't go breathing fire around the med bay, Webbigail. Some of these materials are highly flammable."
"Wait, you're giving people stuff that could set them on fire?" Dewey asked, perplexed.
"I'm...I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Cal said and sighed. He shook his head at them. "If you must visit, be quiet and careful. She's in a right state."
They entered the room for Webby to see what Cal meant. Although Lena was in a physically more comfortable position and a safer location than before, she looked no better than she had. Her eyes had long shadows and she was whimpering in her sleep. It tore at Webby's heart to know how miserable Lena was.
"Wonder what she's dreaming about?" Dewey asked.
"No idea…" Webby said and smoothed back Lena's hair. She knew they'd made the right decision in bringing her here, but whatever Cal had done hadn't exorcized Lena's demons. If anything, they seemed more impertinent than before and more demanding.
"She knows no one's going to hurt her, doesn't she?" Dewey asked.
Webby frowned deeply. It didn't seem like Lena knew that at all. If anything, she seemed to think the opposite. She reached out and took Lena's hand. It was hot in her own, but that didn't stop Webby from clasping it between both of hers.
"Sleep well, sweet dreams," Webby whispered. It was a benediction.
The joke was on Webby. Lena almost never had sweet dreams. Right now, she muddled through a mess, her aunt berating and torturing her, the pain in her chest, and the yearning to be near Webby. It never stopped, any of it, no matter how much Lena might wish it to. The world kept spinning inexorably on, regardless.
It kept spinning and she was so very tired. She wanted to succumb, for once in her life, to despair. Yet she felt Webby's hands about her own and sighed inwardly. There were repercussions for that. Then again, there were repercussions for everything in this life. Look at her father. All he'd wanted to do was help Magica, or so Lena supposed, and now he was a goddamn crow.
Lena's thoughts began to unravel and she couldn't focus on any one idea. The crow bled into a magical ceremony and from there to Webby pleading with her with her hands clasped together and tears in her eyes, to Scrooge McDragon in his dragon form and towering above her...to the elixir and the treasure, yearned for but never to be hers...or Magica's...sometimes she thought she and Magica were really the same person.
But if she was the same as Magica, then why did she feel so strongly about Webby? What did it mean, anyway? What did any of it mean?
She was just a cog in the machine and she was replaceable. No one would even notice she was gone. No one except maybe Webby. Webby…
Her last clear thought was of Webby extending her arms out to her with tears in her eyes. Lena scoffed. She wasn't worth it.