Chapter 117

Nadia woke up still curled up in the hospital bed some hours later and looked around the ward, seeing one of the other patients were gone. For a moment, she made herself feel happy for the person since they were able to go home before she thought back over the previous day and clenched her eyes shut.

Someone had put her bag by her feet, and Nadia reached in and grabbed a pain leaf she had put in there from Valkyrie's room to help her scratched arm and sore, aching muscles, before grabbing her phone.

Her mother had sent her texts. They were all the same, as her letters were, asking where she was, what she was doing, when she would be home. Nadia deleted the one-sided conversation entirely so she wouldn't have to see it and put it away.

To ease her heart, she went over to Valkyrie's bed and took her hand in her own. She couldn't bring herself to tell her what had happened. She just said that Fletcher saved Solomon, and then she felt numb guilt once more and carefully laid down in the bed with Valkyrie, shuffling down so she wouldn't pull any of the things attached to Valkyrie, and put her head on Valkyrie's stomach.

She fell back to sleep.

.*****.

Valkyrie's seventh day in a coma

Anton had woken back up. It wasn't new news, but it had happened.

Nadia was living out of her bag at the hospital to stay with Valkyrie and Doctor Kenspeckle hadn't said anything except to tell her how Valkyrie was doing whenever he came to check on her or when he'd come in to take Anton off of medication which would allow him to wake up. She'd been the one to text Tanith.

That had happened two days previously, and now Anton was asking to go home, or more likely, get in on the task of hunting down Skulduggery which no one had spoken to her about but she had overheard. She didn't deserve to be in on missions or tasks after what she had done, but it still stung a little.

To distract herself from the Dead Men and her own guilt, she focused on Valkyrie. Civet, one of the assistants, was incredibly nice and was teaching her some things in his spare time so she might be able to help Valkyrie during her recovery.

She hadn't known they expected a recovery period until he'd brought it up. It had been gut-wrenching and eye-opening to imagine that Valkyrie might not be herself the moment she opened her eyes. Civet had said they were all hoping for the very best but had also explained to her some important things about brain injuries that were frightening to Nadia. After helping her calm down, he'd gone through some of the things Doctor Kenspeckle was concerned might be a problem once Valkyrie woke up based on where she'd been struck on the head by the stairs, and then hit her head on the floor. It was a long list, but the majority of the really bad things had been ranked as very unlikely, so Nadia was able to breathe and move past them, and then Civet had helped her with learning all those good things she might need if any one of those bad things happened.

It was very nice to have something useful to do, other than talk to Valkyrie of course. She spent most of her time just stroking Valkyrie hair, or rubbing her thumb over her hand as she read the medical books.

But truly, a girl in a coma made for awful conversation. She tried when she could, but she had no news, no good thoughts. So she sat with her and gave her touch instead, hoping that one day she might respond to that, something Civet had indicated was a good thing anyway. Regardless of if it was, Nadia had run out of things to say. She felt sort of bad, but if she said anything else it would have to be made up because she couldn't think of a single other thing and didn't want to frighten Valkyrie with the medical stuff just in case she could hear her.

Overall, her experiences were lonely and boring.

.*****.

Valkyrie's eighth day in a coma

The very next day, four days after she'd gotten Solomon out of the Spider's den, the Dead Men came to the hospital to help Anton go back home. Nadia had smiled, seeing how relieved his family was behind the tense muscles and strained smiles, watching as they came in and left again.

They hadn't spoken to her.

She'd come to the conclusion she was invisible to them. That or they really did hate her.

Tanith only spoke to her over text, never relaying messages from the men, as if they would have anything to say to her. The only man other than the doctors she had seen was Fletcher, who'd come every other day to bring her takeaway and get her dirty clothes and replaced them with clean ones. Thanks to him, and probably Myra, she was fit to stay in the hospital. He'd been kind to her from the start and always asked how she was and what she'd heard about Valkyrie. A lot more than Valkyrie's family had done.

She shook that thought away. They asked Kenspeckle personally to get all the details. Not an idiot that doesn't know right from really fucking stupid like her.

She planned on making it back to Fletcher when she could.

.*****.

Just hours after Anton left with his family, Nadia had another surprise.

Skulduggery had shown up.

She'd been in the bathroom using baby wipes to clean herself since the actual patients needed the shower and had opened the door to leave just as Skulduggery had gone into the ward. Her heart had almost jumped out her mouth with some emotion she still couldn't handle, and she'd nearly locked herself back in the bathroom before kicking herself, literally, and making herself leave.

He hadn't noticed her carefully looking around the corner of the doorframe at him because he'd been focused on the bed Solomon rested in. Somehow, he was the one that had come out of surgery and not had a long period of unconsciousness. He'd been awake, and eerily silent. He did sleep a lot, but Nadia was pretty sure he pretended when the Dead Men had been around. She knew he was in there. But he hadn't spoken a word, and she had tried speaking to him as much as she did Valkyrie, repeated almost everything to him. It hadn't done anything.

Now, Skulduggery was leaning over him and holding one hand, speaking so softly Nadia couldn't hear what he said. It was almost impossible to see, but Solomon's lips moved. She had no idea what they said, but it was disturbing to her. Watching a man that was so horrible, so despicable. He's been awful to Valkyrie and herself. But she could see a spark in Solomon's eyes now, something angry, something that gave him the strength to not only speak but also point weakly in Valkyrie's direction.

She decided to leave them to it. She smiled to herself, hoping Solomon also had the strength to say some of the choice words she didn't have the guts for. It wasn't her business after all.

.*****.

Valkyrie's ninth day in a coma

It only took one more day before Valkyrie was pronounced healthy. The tubing was removed and so was all the monitoring equipment. As of that day, Valkyrie had been in a coma for nine days. She was still in a coma, technically, but Doctor Kenspeckle had smiled victoriously that morning and told her, very happily, "She'll be waking up within a day," before going about removing all the stuff.

Nadia had been overjoyed, obviously, and had run to the bathroom to clean up so when Valkyrie saw her she'd look just a little better. It was a silly thing to do, but Nadia liked the idea. She took a full half hour in the bathroom before almost running back to the ward and sitting back down.

Valkyrie hadn't moved.

Nadia sagged, realising that day was going to be the longest one of her life.

She picked up her phone, knowing she really needed to tell Valkyrie's family the news. She swallowed nervously. Perhaps it was petty, but Nadia wanted to be the first one Valkyrie saw. She'd been sitting there for days, and Valkyrie's family had barely come up at all. Sure, they might be busy searching for Skulduggery – she hadn't told them he'd visited, it felt personal to Solomon who'd turned over and refused to talk to her – but this was their sister!

She pulled up Tanith's number to text her, before deciding that was too impersonal and hitting the call button before she could back out. She sat on Valkyrie's bed and pulled off her girlfriend's socks.

"Nadia?" Tanith said through the phone. Her voice was groggy. What time was it? "What's going on? Is Valkyrie okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine," Nadia replied, throwing the socks on the floor and lining up her weapons of mass destruction. Valkyrie was getting a pedicure. "Kenspeckle just told me that Valkyrie's better. She's going to be awake within a day."

"That's great!" Tanith said excitedly. "I'm coming up."

"Okay–"

Tanith hung up.

Nadia sighed and thought for a moment before texting Fletcher that Valkyrie was going to wake up within a day, because she didn't know if he was asleep given his world hopping, and settled in to give Valkyrie her pedicure.

Then a manicure.

Then she plucked her eyebrows for her.

She didn't have anything to do after that. Sighing for what had to be the thousandth time in the hour and a half it had been, she put Valkyrie's socks back on and used her face cleanser to clean Valkyrie's face as she had done every day she'd been there. She was almost out of cotton pads but hadn't wanted to ask Fletcher for more when he'd already done so much.

Sitting carefully by Valkyrie's feet, she was just wondering if Tanith was ever turning up when the door opened and Tanith, Dexter, Saracen, Erskine and Anton came through the door. They all looked incredibly tired but gave her a smile. She tried to smile back and then decided she was too upset with them ignoring her to bother and turned to look at Valkyrie instead.

"Doctor Kenspeckle didn't say when she'd wake exactly," she told them as they began sitting on the beds next to Valkyrie's. "Just that it was within a day."

"It'll be good to see her awake again," Tanith commented. Nadia looked over and only then realised how utterly pale Tanith was. She was breathing shallowly with her eyes closed and was leaning back with her legs open to give some space for the baby within her. She must have been seven months at that point, although Nadia wasn't entirely sure. Nadia decided that Valkyrie could do all the birthing in their relationship since she had more room in there, being the taller one and all. Not that that was even a close thing, but it was something she made a note of in her head. She took Valkyrie's hand in her own.

"Civet and Doctor Kenspeckle showed me some things that might help Valkyrie when she wakes up," Nadia told them. "They're worried it might take a few hours or even days for her memory to be fully functional again, but Kenspeckle says it should be all there. Civet said reminding her of herself is really important to start."

"We'll deal with that when we get there," Saracen said, and when Nadia looked at him she saw that he was comforting Dexter, who looked ready to cry or jump on Valkyrie. He looked as bad as Tanith did, and she felt bad for being so harsh on them in her opinions. They were struggling as much as she was.

They sat there for a long time, Nadia deliberating in her head what to say, before deciding she might as well try. "Have you heard anything about Skulduggery?"

"He's in the country," Erskine said, rubbing Tanith's knee absently. "We haven't found him yet. He hasn't tried to contact us."

Nadia nodded. She didn't want to say about his visit still. "Solomon still hasn't spoken to me," she said instead. "Or the doctors. But I gave him my book and he was reading it yesterday."

"That's good," Erskine said after an awkward moment of silence.

Nadia wasn't really sure how to handle their unresponsiveness to Solomon's health, so she kept staring at Valkyrie.

They were quiet, except to get food every few hours and to be sensitive to Tanith's nausea. Kenspeckle was able to give Tanith some soothing medicine which helped her for a while but it wore off after an hour, leaving Kenspeckle to mutter and go back to his lab room. They didn't really do anything. Nadia asked Anton how he was doing, and he answered her quietly and in short sentences, but that was the only normal response to anything she had had from any of the Dead Men in days. She couldn't recall Anton ever having a long conversation with her, and she felt grateful she at least hadn't made him hate her. Or make him hate her enough to show it, anyway.

The others were dozing around the room when Nadia saw Valkyrie's eyes moving behind her eyelids. She was immediately at her side, stroking her hair, holding her breath. With jiggered movements, Valkyrie raised her arm and rubbed her eyes, yawned and turned to face Nadia. Excitedly, Nadia whispered, "Val? Baby? Can you open your eyes? I've really missed you."

Slowly, Valkyrie opened her eyes and blinked blearily around, looking at Nadia's face blankly. Her eyes moved quickly too, tiny back and forth motions, and Nadia could recognise from her training with Civet that Valkyrie couldn't see her properly, if at all. She grinned, hoping she could at least make out a happy face and kept talking.

"Hey, Valkyrie. I've missed you. You've been asleep for a little bit, but I stayed with you. Your family is here too, they've been worried. Do you want to see Doctor Kenspeckle?"

Valkyrie made no response but did train her shaky eyes on Nadia when she moved, and that did make Nadia happy that she understood that Nadia was a person, perhaps meaning she wanted to look at her and maybe even knew who she was. Before she could get any more ahead of herself, she pressed the button on the wall and only a moment later, Doctor Kenspeckle and Civet came into the room.

Kenspeckle didn't waste time with Nadia, he just moved straight onto Valkyrie, talking in a low, soft voice and taking her temperature, her pulse, and then carefully assessing her eyesight without any equipment.

"Her heart rate is increasing," he noted seriously, taking a quick note and then putting the clipboard down. "Valkyrie, are you looking at me? If you can, please blink twice if you are in any pain, and I will help you. Please could you do that for me."

They waited, Kenspeckle by her head, the rest of the family sitting on the beds and looking on, Nadia and Civet at the end of the bed watching. Valkyrie did blink, but only once, and made no other indication of anything. She was staring at Kenspeckle strangely, and Nadia had a horrible idea.

"Doctor?" She said timidly. He grunted, giving up on Valkyrie responding and getting out his tools to test her motor skills. "Doctor, I think she's scared."

He frowned and looked at her. "Scared? What does she have to be afraid of?"

Nadia didn't feel comfortable with the idea, but thankfully, Civet had also caught on. "Doctor Grouse, Valkyrie may be scared of you. Perhaps the memory of you being possessed…?"

Kenspeckle went immediately pale and put the motor skill instrument back on the metal trolley. "Right," he said somewhat faintly. "Well, to be sure, Civet, you should be the one to treat young Valkyrie." Looking fragile, Kenspeckle rushed from the room and straight into his lab. He left the door a crack open.

Biting her lip, she glanced at Civet before each of them took a side on the bed. She held Valkyrie's hand in her own while Civet began to assess the damage.

I am so sorry to be gone so long! Uni holidays are just times to work on assignments, so it's not a holiday basically. I have just finished my last assignment, and I'm still getting stress migraines. My god will I be glad to be finished with Uni!

Thank you to all that comes and reads this when you see a notification (and anyone in the future that reads this, thank you so much!)

Tell me what you think!