Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 50

Valkyrie's POV

Valkyrie felt the all too familiar feeling of coming around and groaned, feeling the aching in her body but too weak to move. She didn't want to so much as breath. She wondered when possessed Kenspeckle would be back.

She flinched violently when she felt something touch her arm, hearing her heart monitor start to go wild as her fear took over.

"Val, calm down," Tanith's voice said softly. "You're okay, you're safe now."

Valkyrie did calm down, enough that she started crying, but she could still feel that tension in her stomach, the anxiety and pain balled up inside.

"Valkyrie, you need to relax, you need to heal," Tanith said, stroking a thumb over her hand. "Do you want me to call Skulduggery for you?"

Valkyrie nodded, still refusing to open her eyes to the world.

"Alright." Tanith shuffled about and Valkyrie held her breath to force her tears away just a little. Her violent sobbing turned to heaving breaths and Tanith put her phone on speaker.

"Valkyrie?" Crow said through the phone. "How are you feeling?"

"Bad," she said in a small voice. "Where are you?"

"I'm returning the Remnant," he said. He hesitated and then said, "Solomon Wreath is with me. Would you like to speak with him?"

Valkyrie was so surprised it stopped her tears. She nodded pathetically and said, "Yes please." She felt like a little child. She needed a hug.

The phone was passed over and Valkyrie opened her eyes in the meantime, turning on her side carefully to face the phone. "Miss Cain? How are you feeling?"

"Not so good," she said in her hoarse voice. "How – what – how are you?"

"I am tired but otherwise healthy. The possessed doctor was taken by surprise and we were able to capture him and remove the Remnant without killing the man," he said. Valkyrie had no idea what to feel let alone say, so she said nothing at all. "He is expected to make a full physical recovery. Have you heard any news of your own health?"

"No," she said. "I haven't seen anyone yet."

"I believe you were taken to a different hospital to your usual, as was to be expected," Raven told her. "I could not tell you which though. I would put my money on a Doctor Synecdoche, a less skilled medic but still more than capable. I suppose I shouldn't compare her to a genius after all, it is too unfair a comparison. She specialises in battle wounds, and you certainly have a few of those."

Valkyrie wanted to laugh or at least smile at the attempt at humour, but she couldn't. "What happened to Kenspeckle?"

"He was taken to the Sanctuary medical ward for minor treatments," he said. He hesitated himself before continuing. "I understand he is awake and is suffering far more psychologically than physically. He remembers little of his time with the Remnant, but has been told what he did. I expect him to be spending a lot of his time with a therapist."

Valkyrie nodded, feeling a little sick. "Any other news?"

"Well, I know the teleporter boy is having a fit because he has not been included in your rescue. He took it upon himself to go to your young lady and tell her about your injuries. Skulduggery will be disciplining him, apparently, but wanted to talk to you first," Raven told her. "Miss Robin's mother has not allowed her to see you, likely as she was informed of the extent of your injuries. Neither Mr Renn nor Miss Robin knows the full truth of exactly what has happened to you, only that it is extensive."

"Mrs Keena does?"

"I don't think so," Raven said. "Merely that you were tortured and were on life or death status for several hours. Also, she is not family, so the information came from Skulduggery and he didn't want to break your privacy."

"Ok," she said in a small voice. "Anything else happened?"

"We captured Scarab," he said, "but he took a suicide pill while we were rescuing you. No one has missed him yet. We came from tracking Foe's Gang but they're good at evading us. Not as good as the Diablery though. We will find them before they set off the Engine."

Valkyrie nodded and the phone was passed back the Crow for a little while before Valkyrie felt like she was falling asleep and they said their goodbyes. She didn't even get to thank Tanith before she was asleep.

.*****.

"Well, I think that's about all," Doctor Synecdoche said, closing her clipboard. Valkyrie had been at the clinic for four days since she woke up, six days total since she was rescued and she felt a lot better, physically, mentally and emotionally. Perhaps not enough to visit Kenspeckle, but enough to be left alone. "I think you're free to go."

Valkyrie grinned at her sweetly. "Thanks."

"No problem. Try to keep out of trouble."

"Yeah," Valkyrie said, pulling on her coat. "That's not going to happen."

Skulduggery and Fletcher were waiting for her – Valkyrie had settled for slapping Fletcher really, really hard when he came to visit her as punishment and the incident was considered settled even by Fletcher who honestly admitted he made a serious mistake out of anger and panic – and they teleported without a word to the mansion.

"How has it been these last few days?" She asked. "It must have been pretty busy."

"Oh, it was," Fletcher said quickly. "I saved Guild and the world myself with some pretty serious heroism."

"Oh really?" Valkyrie said mockingly. "And how did you do that?"

"Well, that bomb, right?" Fletcher said as they came to a stop at the door to finish the story. "Guild's family was taken hostage. He has a little girl, like, nine, and they told him to set the bomb off at the stadium in exchange for their safety."

"What? The Football Final? Shit, I was meant to go there for my birthday! I had tickets. I was looking forward to it. How did you stop the bomb?"

"I teleported Guild to the ocean right before it went off. Other than a few thousand fish, there were no casualties."

Valkyrie sighed. "Does that mean Guild is alive?"

"Yes," Crow said. "And he'll remain Elder. Meritorious has put me in charge of making a catalogue of criminal charges to put against him while he tries to find a replacement though, so I don't expect he'll be in power much longer. I've already put 'Willing to murder eighty thousand plus mortals on live television' at the top. It goes perfectly with 'Willing to allow a minor to be tortured to stop a bomb.' Very hypocritical if you ask me."

"Great."

"My thoughts exactly."

"But it's all rounded up? And I can go in and get dinner now? Because I'm actually really hungry," Valkyrie pressed.

"Of course," Crow told her.

Valkyrie smiled and did just that – "Surprise!"

Valkyrie laughed, seeing her family had put together a dinner for her – Echo Gordon was standing there, her brothers and Tanith, all there to celebrate her recovery. And most importantly, they had not only got pizza and chips, but also sausage rolls, crisps and her other favourite party foods. "Aww, guys!" She grinned. "Stop blocking the food."

They all laughed and cleared the way to the buffet they'd made in the living room, letting her pile her plate high before getting their own, all knowing how hungry she would be. They put a movie on too, the new 'Beauty and the Beast'. The original had been a favourite as a child, likely Gordon's influence, but she never got to see the new version. It was definitely worth it to her and getting to lean on Bear's arm and have Snake's head in her lap again was bliss, all made better by Tanith practically lying all over Panda in the corner.

The afternoon was a quiet affair, but they shared stories from the Dead Men's missions hundreds of years ago as well as finishing off the evening with a Chinese takeaway because they hadn't consumed enough oil and sugar from the rest.

She even found, when she went upstairs to change into her pyjamas, a stack of cards and presents from friends and well-wishers. There was even one from China, a simple but elegant card wishing her a swift recovery. It smelt like wildflowers.

She had the usual ones just as she got at Christmas, one from Civet and Stentor, one from the Meritorious and Elder Crow combined – very business-like – and one from a few other Sanctuary employees. She had one from Marr that she wasn't sure of the legitimacy of but she had not so much as looked at her in months and had requested not to work with Crux any longer.

That said, she put it straight in the bin.

Finally, she delicately picked up a letter that clearly had Kenspeckle's writing on.

She wasn't scared looking at it, nor of thinking of him. But … she wasn't quite ready to read it. It made her feel sick. She put it in her desk drawer for another time.

She changed and went downstairs, finding the others sitting around just as casually as before but a little more naked. She paused on the stairs for a moment, taking in how wrong that sounded before continuing on to the room of genuinely half-naked men. Yeah, that didn't sound any better. They were all in their pyjamas, so the men were in sleeping trousers – for modesty as they all knew they slept in just shorts, but it was still 'family time' after all – while Fletcher had a top on and she had on winter pyjamas, unlike Tanith who'd found a very, very, very tiny pair of teeny-itty-bitty shorts…

Honestly, Tanith was more naked than literally anyone else and she was Valkyrie's sister. That wasn't okay even a little bit. She needed alone time and more Nadia it seemed.

It wasn't her fault her sister was literally gorgeous and not related to her and she could see all of her ass right now and she wasn't wearing a bra.

Shaking her head from the gutter it was rapidly sliding into, she joined her family – she focused on that word – and sat beside Wolf. She nudged him and he gave her a smile and put an arm around her shoulders. "Are you not hot?" He asked quietly.

They had put the fire on a while ago and it was quite hot. "I'm a little chilly. Probably just the meds and stuff."

He didn't look convinced but nodded anyway and changed the conversation as everyone had gone silent to look at them. "What were you going to say about our plans Skul?"

"Ah, yes," Crow said, sitting up in importance. "We were going to discuss what to do while you are recovering Valkyrie."

"I have ten days, right?"

"Yes, but only four days of no activity, after that you can go back to training so long as you hit no walls or something along those lines," he said.

"Such stupid rules," Tanith said. Panda grunted. She was sitting on her knees on the floor by the coffee table nibbling on leftovers. Panda sat exactly behind her, staring directly at her arse. Everyone knew what she was doing of course. They were enjoying watching Panda's look of pain. And Tanith was one of those people that were more than happy for anyone to look at her body, although Valkyrie didn't want to imagine any of her brother's thoughts.

"Exactly. So after the four days of schoolwork, I was thinking of doing some very, very small cases as a means of working on your searching skills."

"But no fighting?" Valkyrie asked, screwing up her face. "That doesn't sound any fun."

"No, it doesn't," he agreed. "But it would be invaluable lessons for you unless, of course, you'd rather just do schoolwork?"

"On second thoughts, small cases sound fun," Valkyrie smiled sweetly.

Gordon sighed happily from the corner. "I'm so glad that you're all getting on. I got worried when Valkyrie was younger and struggled making friends, so I knew this would be the perfect combination, but I began to doubt when Valkyrie and yourself, Skulduggery, got in a fight. I hadn't factored in your stubbornness. I'm really glad you made up and pulled Valkyrie from school. You've just blossomed since."

"Yeah, I hated school so much," Valkyrie said. "And these guys are alright too."

Dexter grumbled under his breath, "I don't know where they hired some of those people. I remember when you were in Year Seven, Cub, and came home crying."

"Oh yes!" Gordon said, laughing. "I remember getting a call a few days later telling me to tell 'Miss Edgley's guardian' a sincere apology."

"You mean when my teacher said my parents would be ashamed of me?" She said, scowling. "What did you say to her? I was never put in her class again. She completely ignored me since."

"I sent her a friendly little letter outlining how I didn't appreciate her behaviour," Crow said, steeping his fingers. "To her home, with a delicately woven thread of retribution if she hurt you again."

Valkyrie snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm not surprised."

They smiled and talked about Crow's annoyingness into the night, outlining some of his absolute worst plans to his embarrassment until Valkyrie fell asleep against the armrest with a smile.

Seems I lied yesterday, I got this prepared at half one in the morning so you got something today! I hope you're glad, I deserve some love for that. But wasn't that cute? Worth the accidental lie :)