Chapter 189

"Hey Aine," Valkyrie smiled, coming up behind her cousin. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore but alright," Aine said with a small smile. "I didn't think it would hurt so much."

"Yeah. I was lucky, my Surge was sort of an opposite. I had no magic for a few weeks and then it just came back how it is now. I'm sorry it hurt you," Valkyrie smiled, placing the flowers from herself and Nadia on the hospital side table. They were at Kenspeckle's, as that was the only place Valkyrie had thought of when Aine had called her about an intense pain and feeling like she had 'too much magic inside'. He assured her that staying home on bedrest would have been suitable for her cousin, but since they were already there he had allowed Aine to stay anyway. It had only lasted six hours.

"Oh, why was yours different?" Aine asked.

Valkyrie let out a short bark of a laugh. "Err, well, my Surge happened accidentally. It didn't happen naturally like yours, or anyone else's, where they chose a magic. Although I know you didn't have many options to choose from, but it's still a choice in a way. My magic had been drained by a bad guy, I was under a lot of stress and I guess something just went wrong. I ended up pulling on some other magic and now I'm left with this stuff," she smiled, flicking her hand and making white energy flicker between her fingers.

"Oh, cool," Aine grinned, happily ignorant of the other not so fun facts. That was probably for the best. "Did you see your house yesterday?"

"Yeah, it's coming along really well. Me and Nadia saw it and then had a little date night after getting samples for the flooring," Valkyrie grinned, thinking back to her and Nadia's new favourite thing to do. Again, nothing Aine needed to know. "They think they'll be done in a month or so but then they need to finish the insides, and that's before the furniture is found and brought in. So it'll be a good four months I expect. That's with good weather and not including the more intricate woodwork Nadia and Erskine have planned for the new staircase and library. Some things won't get finished until after all the Spider mess is done, I bet."

"That's not awful, considering how much you're changing the house. It's basically going to be brand new other than some exterior walls."

"Exactly," Valkyrie nodded. "Nadia's actually looking at wallpapers and paints now, which is why she isn't here. She says hi by the way. I think, because she grew up with magic, the whole idea of a Surge is just a bore to her. It's only interesting when you're a kid and then it's just this thing that'll take ages to happen and takes away a lot of the magic you learnt as a teenager. So she's not as interested as me."

"Has she had her Surge yet?" Aine asked.

"No, but I doubt it'll be long now, she's eighteen. Most people Surge before they're twenty, but that's not to say it might not take a little longer after that even," Valkyrie told her. "What did you tell your folks about staying away the night?"

"I didn't tell them a reason, I just texted them that I wasn't coming home. I bet they're really mad," Aine said, her face falling immediately. "Honestly I don't want to go home right now."

"Yeah, I can imagine," Valkyrie said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "If you like, you can come and stay with me and Nadia at my – well, he's not my father, he's my kind of adopted father's kind of ex but not really ex-boyfriend. He's great though, I love Solomon a lot and he's honestly the most responsible, sweet father figure I've ever had. He really cares about me. And he hasn't done a lot of the crap Skulduggery has."

"Skulduggery is getting treatment right now, though, right? I know he's done a lot of bad things to you, mostly right before, you know, he had to leave, but maybe you should wait and see how he is after the treatment to make your final judgement," Aine suggested, looking at her with concern. "I mean, you know him better than me, but I figure, if he's in therapy and he's really trying, maybe he deserves a last chance to make it up to you. If he messes up again after that, I wouldn't blame you for being really angry though."

"Yeah, I think I'll kill him again if he does that," Valkyrie joked. "I think I want to give him another chance. But he has to come back and make one hell of an apology and promise to not put anyone else in danger, especially with Tanith and Ghastly's baby living with us."

"That's fair."

"And he'll need to make it up to Nadia. I want to forgive him and let it go, but if Nadia can't trust him then I don't think I'll be able to. It's not fair on her, and I love her too much to force it."

"You're a good person, Val," Aine said, holding her hand. She laughed suddenly. "You know, I think this is the first time we've ever held hands."

Valkyrie laughed. "Yeah, I think so. God, I'm being soppy, sorry. I've just been missing Skulduggery a lot and there's been a lot of stresses. And… and I think there's something going on with Nadia. I didn't bring it up with her yesterday, even though I meant to, but I noticed after I got back from England that… well, I think she's self-harming."

Aine's jaw dropped and she sat up a little higher. "What? Oh no, that's horrible!"

"I just don't know how to handle it. I know the basic stuff, like not making her feel bad about it and stuff, but I just feel fucking awful that she's so stressed and anxious about her life that she's doing this. I mean… honestly, a little part of me thinks it would be best to convince her to go to her parents. I know there's a lot of crap going on with them and her, but she needs normal friends and family to help calm her and take some of this pressure. She's not like me. I've lost so much and gone through so much, but I've always come out on top, even if it's taken a while, purely because its happened so much and because I'm just one of those people that can handle it. Not everyone can. Nadia had her whole childhood handed to her on a silver platter and she was rarely told no. Now she's dating me and her family hate her, she has only a handful of friends, she doesn't see those friends very often because she lives with me. It's no wonder she's breaking down."

"Wait, calm down," Aine said soothingly, crossing her legs and getting Valkyrie to pull herself further into the bed and cross her legs across from Aine. "There's no point working yourself up. I suffer from a lot of anxiety, especially at home, so I know how Nadia feels. But you know what, from want you've told me of when you two were broken up, she was in a lot more pain then to now. And if you've only just noticed, that's because she isn't hurting herself when you're together. She's doing this when she's away from you because she's worried for you and because she loves you. Not that that makes it good, but that's why she gets anxious."

"But she shouldn't love me so much she's dependant on me!"

"She's not, you're missing the point. She was stressed and anxious and not eating much when she was in India, right? And I'd bet she started self-harming there because that was when she was at her lowest, at least from what you've told me. It makes the most sense. She gets physically ill, can't eat, gets tired and exhausted and feels awful, and that results in self-harming. So now, when she starts feeling the same waves of anxiety or panic or stress, she falls back on it. She needs a counsellor to teach her how to deal with those feelings rather than falling back on bad habits."

"How do I convince her to go to a counsellor though?"

"Ask her. Just sit her down and talk to her. I know that would have helped me when I was younger," Aine smiled. "Hell, I still do it on rare occasion, just not nearly as badly or as much. This stuff takes time, a lot of understanding and no judgement. Considering she's tried so hard to keep it from you, I bet she's going to be upset when you talk to her, but personally, I think she's better off being forced to be honest and talk to you than bottling it up and getting nowhere. She agreed to marry you, I would imagine that means she must love you enough to feel comfortable talking and just hasn't found the right way to do it."

Valkyrie nodded slowly. "I think you're right.

Aine smiled. "Good. Now, could you help me to the bathroom? I want to get changed but I keep thinking one of the doctors are going to come back in."

"I don't think Kenspeckle, Civet or Stentor care about seeing you get changed. Kenspeckle had to put stitches in my vag once. Did I tell you about that?"

"No!" Aine said, looking at Valkyrie with horror.

"Yeah, funny story. I was attacked by three homophobic girls a bit older than me when I was, like, fourteen, and the kicked me between the legs so hard I was cut and Kenspeckle had to sew it up. I was so embarrassed he had to put me totally under rather than use a local anaesthetic, and then I didn't look at him for two months because of it. It was wild."

"That's horrible!"

"Yeah, but I lived. I mostly just feel bad for Kenspeckle."

.*****.

"Hey, baby," Valkyrie smiled.

"Hey," Nadia grinned. "Hi Aine, how are you?"

"I'm better now, thank you," she said politely. "I'm sorry for ruining your date night last night."

"That's okay, it wasn't a real date," Nadia smiled, leaving the dark oak dining room table and coming over to hug Aine tightly. "It's good to see you better though. You can help me and Valkyrie pick out some paint and wallpapers if you like. I picked up some wood samples too that we need to go over, and a bit of carpet but not too much. I narrowed it down a bunch today. I figured we should work out the main walls and wood before moving onto the random rooms."

"Sounds good," Valkyrie said, before asking what everyone wanted to drink and disappearing to make a pot of tea. She came back in to her cousin and fiancée looking very, very closely at a nice dark brown wood, not too black and not a stain, and not with any red tones. "That wood looks nice."

"Thanks, it's something fancy," Nadia smirked. "I'm not sure if I like this brown or a greyer colour though." Nadia moved around the room, collecting various pieces of wood and stacking them on the table. She sorted them into an order of dark brown, lightening up to an ashy grey-brown. "The dark browns are a statement and a lot of people have that in old houses, but the grey is much more modern. But I'm pretty sure that the grey is just a fad, and grey will limit a lot of our other colour choices. But I don't want to go as dark as this wood."

"I agree," Valkyrie nodded, picking up the one darkest one and all four of the grey tones. "I'm not a fan of the grey, and I want our house to remain for another few hundred or so years. These slightly lighter dark browns will be brighter in the house, which I really want, and it'll go with practically every other colour we want. Plus, no orange or red tones, and I love that."

"Yeah, but that's still three," Nadia complained.

"That's a lot less than two minutes ago," Valkyrie pointed out. "I prefer the middle one personally, but I think they're all nice. It's up to you honey."

Nadia hummed. "What do you think Aine?"

"I think the darker one looks more expensive," she said, somewhat shily. "But they're all really nice."

In the end, Nadia didn't make a decision, but she did pick out a few nice paints that would work with any of those woods that she marked down for later, so it wasn't all unsuccessful. She also kept a hold of all three of those remaining woods to choose between.

They decided to go to their bedroom to 'relax' after a while so Aine could call her parents in privacy.

"That was stressful," Nadia sighed, lying face down in the middle of the bed. Valkyrie stood with her back leaning on the closed bedroom door, looking at Nadia. "Are you staring at my ass? We can't do anything naughty, Aine is in the other room."

"I'm not trying to start anything," she sighed, pushing off and sitting on the very edge of the end of the bed. "Sit up. I want to talk."

Nadia sat up quickly, looking at her with concern. "What is it?"

"Nadia," she said slowly, reaching out and taking Nadia's hands. Slowly, she pulled up Nadia's left jacket sleeve, brushing her fingers over where the very, very faint marks were now practically gone. She must have used a healing stone on them earlier that day. "You've been stressed recently."

Nadia hesitated and pulled her hands out of Valkyrie's hold, shaking her sleeve down. "Well yeah. I was really worried about you, and Tanith, and the others. And then I found out they were torturing you and I was even more worried because they wouldn't let me see you."

"I understand, baby. I can't imagine how hard this is for you, the amount of strain you're under," she said softly, keeping her voice low and sweet. She paused for a moment, drawing her leg up to her chest. "I had hoped you would come and talk to me about your… stress starving and self-harming, but I let it go since it seemed you were talking to Dexter and Saracen, but I've noticed you doing it again."

Nadia was completely frozen, staring at her hands she laid very flat on her knees.

"I don't want to force you to talk to me if you don't want to, honey. It's okay if I'm not that person to you. But would you be open to talking to a counsellor or a therapist or someone like that? I love you so much, I just don't want you harming yourself because of the things I've introduced to your life," she said, trying to not sound desperate or condescending.

Nadia shifted slightly and Valkyrie kept her mouth close, forcing back her sudden need to keep talking. She took a deep breath. "I didn't think you knew."

"I suspected you might be doing worse than not eating, but I wasn't certain how bad it was. Saracen made a comment that made me think he knew what was happening and was working on it with you so I didn't bring it up, since you didn't, but a few days ago when I came back from England I noticed the cuts on your arms. Again, you didn't mention it, but since you took your clothes off around me with the cuts, I thought you were going to tell me, so I waited. But you didn't."

"I just didn't… I didn't want you to worry about me. You had a lot on your mind, and right when you got back I thought you were going to get really depressed at first and I was panicking. And honestly, I thought they were faded enough for you not to notice."

Valkyrie smiled up at her from under her lashes. "You're dating a detective, Nadia. Of course I'd notice."

Nadia cracked a smile. "Fair."

"Would you be willing to talk to a counsellor then?" She asked sincerely.

She hesitated. "I suppose. It would probably be a good idea. I know that cutting myself, and the scratching, is wrong but sometimes it happens without me meaning too. And I genuinely don't try to starve myself, when I get stressed and anxious I actually do feel physically sick, that's why I don't eat," she defended.

"I'm not denying that," Valkyrie soothed. "I'll organise someone for you to talk to and we'll see what they say. I mean, you have been attacked and held hostage by a rapist vampire, cut off from all your friends and most of your family after being thrown into a school you hated, couldn't speak the language at school, attacked a bunch of times and held hostage again since you started dating me, and that's without all the trauma of watching me go through crap. I think it's fair that things can get a little too much for you sometimes," she smiled, getting another smile from Nadia. "And we'll go on another date. Tomorrow. You deserve it. I'm going to take you to a really fancy restaurant, and I'll ask China what fancy thing is happening soon and I'll take you there. I promise."

"Thank you." Nadia crawled up and hugged Valkyrie tightly. "I really appreciate it. We need a nice time together after… you know. Everything."

"Yeah. Me too."

Just a lil filler chapter. Plus, Nadia is well overdue for some therapy, like she needed this as of last year in story. Well, in real life too if you think about posting dates...

Lord Duck the Second: Oh yes, full homosexual vibes for you, you sinner! I posted a pic on FB earlier, because I'm stuck in my teen years, that was something like "Live a life the Westboro Baptist Chruch would picket your funeral over", and I have family on there that I'm not out to. My grandad commented "subtle" on it. Honestly, Val 100% lives by that picture.

Valkyrie Harmony: I know, I love them so much! Sometimes I worry I should have used characters from the books, but I love Nadia so much, she's the girlfriend I wish I could have. The girlfriend we all wish we could have. A bisexual queen.