The Taguel Tradition

by signelchan

or, How Panne Changed Yarne's Life, For Better or Worse. The year of the rabbit is an important time for the taguel culture, which is unfortunately a single-digit number of people. That being said, Panne takes the year very seriously and makes sure that she gets her son taking it seriously too. This has far-reaching consequences that she fully anticipated. [Modern AU]

9. When It Rains, It Floods

The intention had been to give his plan about a month of action before actually explaining what he'd done, but Yarne had grossly miscalculated how things worked in the world around him, and when he showed up at home far later than usual the very next Friday, Kjelle was already sitting in the chair, legs crossed underneath her, just watching the door for his entrance. "So, things get ugly at your parents' house today?" she asked him, reading his body language and how he wasn't in any sort of emotional distress to know that what she presented wasn't the case at all. "Or did you just choose not to go over there again, after what didn't happen at our dinner that didn't happen this week."

"Oh, I, uh, I'm not picking Ribbon up from school anymore," he answered, immediately being struck with guilt that he shouldn't have felt to begin with. "I'm working until my actual scheduled off time now, instead of leaving early to go get her. Mom wasn't thrilled about it when I asked if it was okay, but Dad talked her down from her anger and said he'd handle it if I wasn't going to."

"That's rather mature of you to make that decision. Strange that you didn't tell me sooner, but I'll manage." With a flip of her hair, Kjelle just about threw herself backward into the cushion behind her, only catching herself with an elbow that was at the perfect angle to keep her from flinging back too hard. After laughing off her near-brush with danger, she got herself up out of the chair and went to meet Yarne by the door, following him into the bedroom so that he could change clothes and they could talk at the same time. "I'm not mad that you didn't tell me, by the way. In case you thought I was."

It felt like the insistence that she wasn't upset was a bit on the nose, but he went on with switching into his comfier clothes without thinking too much about it. "I didn't want to tell you about it because I didn't want you thinking that I was doing it for any particular reason other than needing to actually make more money."

"See, the problem there is that by hiding it, you're making me more suspicious of what your actual intentions are. I'm sure you're not lying to me about anything, but what if you are? What if you want that extra money for something for me?" Shifting her eyes down toward the ground, Kjelle audibly began chattering her teeth together as she avoided saying anything else, until she couldn't resist further. "Yarne, I want you to tell me right now if you're making extra money for me. Right now."

"Depends on your definition of 'for you,' I suppose," he replied, his voice going low as he wasn't sure how those words were going to be taken. When he heard her gasp, he knew that she was at least a little taken aback by hearing that. "We have a lot of things that are going to cost us a lot of money happening, and I want to do my part in being prepared for them. Of course, the biggest one of those things is…"

"Preparing for the baby, right." At once, it seemed that the surprise that she'd felt had disappeared completely—making it all too clear that what had been weighing on Yarne's mind for the past week was something he probably did need to address. "I don't know, how much is there that we can even do about them right now? I'm not sure there's anything we even need to start buying right away."

He blinked, pulling on his pants and looking at his girlfriend with a nearly blank expression. "Have you seen all of the things you need for a baby? There's so much stuff we can start getting right now so that we're stockpiled and ready to go whenever the time comes."

"Okay, smart one, but where would we keep all of the stockpiled stuff? It's not like we're swimming in space here, place gets pretty cramped if there's anything extra laying around." That was a problem, and it was one that Yarne hadn't even thought about up until that moment because when they'd bought the house, it had been in the mindset that it never would be more than just the two of them living under the roof. "Unless we're going to ask my parents if we can use some of their extra space that isn't filled with junk to store things, I don't think we're getting a stockpile going."

"You wouldn't actually ask your parents if we could do that."

"You're right, I'm still not talking to them after what happened last time." She slowly shook her head after lifting it, staring off into nothingness for a moment before sighing. "Even though I probably should just, you know, get off my high horse and handle that situation like an adult. But not right now, and not over this."

"As long as you do it sometime, I think that's what matters." Yarne knew from personal experience that harboring grudges against parents for too long always seemed to make things worse before they got better, and he knew that Kjelle knew that too. "But okay, so no stockpiling things for right now until we know where to store it. Which means I guess I can just save up that extra money for when we do need to buy things."

"Or you can…" Gesturing wildly with her hands as she continued looking past where Yarne was standing, Kjelle seemed to be trying to avoid saying something on the tip of her tongue. She seemed to win the battle over her desires, as she swallowed down some unsaid words and instead finished with, "No, saving that money is probably what's best right now. Better to have some savings than to be going into things completely broke."

"That wasn't what you originally wanted to say there, was it?" he asked, picking up on her hesitant behavior and knowing that they were both dancing around things right then, but he was unsure if it was the same thing or not. "It's okay, you can say what you really think I should use that money for, I promise I'm not going to say no."

With a slow blink, she shook her head once again. "It's whatever, there's not much of a reason for me to bring it up with you right now. I'm just getting wrapped up in my thoughts about what life should look like going forward, nothing big."

His lips separated as if he was going to say something, but he closed them back up when he realized he didn't know what he wanted to say right then. That more or less confirmed what had been brought to his attention, that she was fixating on the aspect of them getting married sooner or later, and he didn't know how to address that without making it look like his hand was forced. None of this was what he'd originally expected his life would be like at twenty-four years old, he didn't think he would have a girlfriend (who seemed to want to be more than his girlfriend) and a child and a house that was too small and all of the other things that were currently pressing down on his being.

Still, though, he had to say something about it, unless he wanted Kjelle thinking that he just didn't care about her feelings, but right as he decided that he was going to acknowledge her denial, he heard his phone ringing on the bed, where he'd put it when changing his pants. "I wasn't expecting any calls today," he muttered, reaching over to grab the phone and seeing that it was an unfamiliar number calling him. Even though it was the worst timing, all things considered, he offered the phone over to Kjelle, motioning toward the unknown caller label as he did. "Can you answer this for me, please?"

She snapped back into the bedroom mentally, looking at the phone and taking it from him without even questioning it. The call was answered, the phone pressed to her ear, and before she had the chance to get a word out, she was offering it right back to him. "Nope, not for me, you need to be listening to this," she said, being very insistent in how she kept pushing the phone back at him.

"Do I have to?" he asked, earning a serious stare from her until he'd taken the phone back and put it to his ear. He was met with soft breathing on the other side, followed by a voice asking if it was Yarne that they were speaking with. "Uh, yeah, that's me. Who are you and why are you calling me?"

"I'm so sorry to bother you, sir, but you were listed as an emergency contact and we needed to be able to reach out to someone to inform you of an accident." Those last words made Yarne's grip on his phone loosen to the point that it just about slid out of his hand and down to the floor, but thankfully Kjelle saw it happening in the split-second before it did, her making sure to be there to catch the phone when it fell. By the time all of the information in the call had been delivered, the phone was on speaker and laying on the bed, Yarne sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the mattress and Kjelle up above him, running her fingers through his hair to keep him calm.

The person, presumably an officer or a medical professional of some sort, had been very gentle in their delivery of what was going on, but had been unable to give any details about the accident in question beyond the fact that it was a serious one and that medical transport had been involved. She had made sure to give Yarne the exact hospital that he could go to in order to visit the injured, but that was the closest to actual details he'd been able to receive from her. "What if it's Mom?" he warbled after the call had ended, throwing himself forward until his head was nearly touching the ground in front of him. "I'm no doctor, but I'm sure getting into an accident while pregnant isn't good for anyone involved."

"I…don't know what to say, actually." Leaning forward as well, so that she could look down and see how much Yarne had contorted himself in his emotional state, Kjelle seemed to be going over the options of what had happened to determine what was best to bring up. "I mean, they called you. That probably means both of your parents are involved. And if both of them are involved, then that means Ribbon might be too."

Yarne shot right back up, nearly knocking his head into Kjelle's as he did. "Whatever's going on better not have hurt my sister," he stated, a seriousness in his voice that hadn't been there moments before. "Come on, Kjelle, let's go see if we can see them and find out what's going on for ourselves."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Within five minutes they were out the door, not feeling the need to change out of their lounging clothes for something that was a sudden decision, but she was soon right back inside, switching out car keys because Yarne made it to his driver side door and realized that he didn't want to be driving right then. Once that was settled, they were on their way over to the hospital that they'd been told was where to meet with the injured, the drive was particularly slow because Yarne was making sure that Kjelle was overly careful with every intersection she drove through.

"You never know if someone's going to drive like a maniac through here, and I'd rather not get ourselves put in the hospital too," he explained, all of that seriousness still present but intertwined with his normal nervousness. "People don't know how to drive sometimes."

"I know we'll make it there unscathed," she assured him, but even with her confidence in her driving she was sure to make those full and complete stops at his request. When they got to the hospital, they parked in the side garage that was closest to the emergency floor, as they'd been directed by the woman on the phone, and before they got out of the car, Kjelle looked over at Yarne and saw him visibly trembling, tears in his eyes as he was doing deep breathing exercises in an attempt to calm himself. "Hey, don't worry, everything's going to be okay. We're going to go in there and there's going to be nothing to worry about, whoever got hurt is going to make it out just fine."

"H-how can you be so sure?" His voice was shaking just as much as his body was. "I don't want to go in there and see any of them hurt. I…I can't even pick one that I want to see hurt least, that's how much I don't want any of them hurt."

"They're going to be fine, I promise." She reached over and gave him a hand to hold, which she only retracted when he seemed to have calmed down just enough to feel comfortable getting out of the car.

Standing in the parking garage brought on a whole different set of emotions, however, when he could look out at the other cars around them and saw one that immediately caught his eye. A sense of relief washed over him as he, still teary-eyed and trembling, pointed over at the particular vehicle he'd seen. "That's the car Mom prefers to drive, that's got to mean she's here and she's okay!" he shouted, feeling a sense of relief regarding his mother he never expected to experience. Sure enough, as soon as those words had left his mouth, what that also meant hit him. "But that means that…"

"Don't think about what it means, right now you're happy that your mom's okay and we're going to keep focusing on that, okay?" Kjelle sounded firm, like she was trying to be convincing in a situation where there were a lot of big emotions around. "Let's get inside and see if we can find her, or meet with her once we get to the room."

Yarne nodded, understanding that Kjelle really did mean well in that moment. "Right. We're going to find Mom and then find everyone else. I hope Ribbon is with her…" All he could think about was his little sister and how, if she was involved in what had happened, he could have prevented it by not choosing to no longer pick her up from school. The mere idea that he could have stopped the accident made him start sobbing again, but it was too late to get back in the car and have him calm down there; they had to keep moving forward, resulting in the two of them entering the emergency room doors with him in absolute distress and her having to lead him much like a mother would lead a child.

As they approached the counter to see if they could get directed to the right room, they heard a pointed, throat-clearing cough come from across the waiting area, and both of them turned to see Panne sitting by herself, giving them a small wave. "I had a feeling I would catch you two here," she said as they came over to see her, her standing to already start toward the doors into the heart of the hospital. "I've only been here a few minutes, so don't think that I've been waiting around for you both for terribly long."

While Yarne croaked out a greeting to his mother, Kjelle had to do the actual talking for them both. "The call he got was really vague on the details, do you know what happened or are you in the dark about that as well?"

"I've been in contact with the first officers who were on the scene, so I'm more aware of what happened than what I was after getting the initial call about there being an accident." Mind if we walk and talk? Every second we stand here is another second I could…" Panne gave a very quiet sniffle, but it was obvious she was trying not to cry for herself. "It's a second I could be spending at someone's bedside."

She didn't give much of a chance to argue against talking while walking, because she was headed for the doors and the two were left needing to follow her. True to her word, she explained what she knew while they were on their way through the building, her apologizing that she didn't know all of the details even still. From what she had been told, it was a case of someone blowing through a stop when they weren't supposed to, barreling straight into the front of two different vehicles at the same time, and all people in all vehicles involved had been brought to the hospital as a precaution. "So that means that they're just here for observation and there's not anything actually wrong, right?" Kjelle asked, holding onto Yarne's arm with a tight squeeze so that he knew she was asking that question on his behalf, given that he was still sobbing like a baby.

"I wish that was the case. Ribbon seems to be fine enough, she was properly seated and secured in the back where she belongs, and that protected her from much of the impact, but she did get some gashes from a shattering window as well as a concerning spot on one leg from it slamming into the seat in front of her. All things considered, nothing too serious, but that's…that's the easier to handle aspect of this." Inhaling deeply through her nose, Panne actually stopped walking and caused the other two to stop as well, as she leaned against the wall and began rubbing at her eyes with her fingers. "She'll get to go home today, there's no question about it."

"That's good to hear," Kjelle replied, squeezing Yarne's arm again. "I'm sure you're telling us this because the rest of it isn't so good, huh?"

"Correct. It's still not as bad as it could have been, especially with this front impact at a high speed, but it's still not great." She took a moment to dry her tears as best as she could with her fingers, but when they just kept coming, she sighed and got off the wall, continuing walking forward down the hall. "Last I heard, they didn't think there were any broken bones, but there are many bruises and cuts, and at least one that requires stitches to patch up. Poor Ricken, there was nothing he could do to keep this from happening, and this is what he gets for following the law."

"S-so they're both mostly okay?" Yarne managed to spit out, knowing that he'd just heard how they definitely were not okay, but he wanted to see the best in the situation. "That's a relief, honestly. I've been thinking we were going to get here and find all of you dead or dying or something like that."

Panne gave a laugh that was nothing more than a forced breath and grabbed the sleeve of the shirt she was wearing, tugging on it a little to emphasize what it was—a formal piece of clothing that she wouldn't have been wearing in most situations. "I was speaking at an event in celebration of the year of the rabbit and what it once meant for the taguel culture, and was just about to open the floor up for questions when I received the call from the first responder that there had been an accident. Didn't even think to go home and change, I was already so close that I came right away and actually beat the ambulances here."

"How funny that you were speaking about your year of 'blessings' just to find out that the people you love got hit by a reckless driver," Kjelle muttered, not finding it funny at all but wanting to point out the tragic humor in it. "Bet that went over really well with the people you were speaking to."

"Someone there made a similar comment, I suppose it's a non-taguel thing to think that this is a cruel joke but it's neither cruel, nor a joke. They're alive and in fairly good shape, all things considered, so it's more of a blessing than one might realize." The way that Panne responded made it clear that she had been prepared for that sort of reaction by someone, and her genuine answer made Kjelle tense up a little, picking up the rather harsh energy that the woman had put into those words. "It could have been worse. It could always have been worse. Never forget that."

"I…won't, sorry." Still muttering, Kjelle felt like she'd just been put in her place with how she'd been responded to. "I never thought you could look at a car accident as a good thing."

"Mom, are we almost up to see them?" Yarne asked, trying to break the awkwardness that had started developing in the group. "I never realized how big this place is until having to go this far into the building."

"Ribbon's room is just up ahead. If you wanted to visit your father, which I intend on doing first, then you'll have to go a bit further, but your sister is quite literally two doors away from here." Panne gestured down the hallway a bit further, not even looking at where she was pointing. "You'll know it's hers because you'll hear her inside."

Kjelle looked up at Yarne to see what he wanted to do, and when she saw him starting to break down in tears again, she sighed and began leading him forward. "I think we'll stick with checking in on her first. Just make sure to come back around in case he wants to see his dad when he's ready."

"Taking orders from someone half my age, I never thought I'd see it happen." Amused, Panne shook her head and kept following the other two until they had gotten to a door where, yes, Ribbon could be heard jabbering away on the inside. "There, I'm sure she'll be tickled to have even more visitors so soon after getting here. I'll be back down in a little while if you want to go visit Ricken, but that's…" She trailed off as she heard Yarne's crying getting louder. "That's a decision we'll make later."

They parted ways there, the couple going inside the room while Panne kept moving forward, and as the door closed behind them they both heard the gasp from a very excited young girl. "You're actually here? To see me?" Ribbon asked, a squeal to her voice. "I told Mom I wasn't going to need anyone coming here to see me but I guess I can make an exception for you guys!" She waved a bandaged arm at them, the doctor at her side looking at the two while trying to determine who they were.

"You should've known that Yarne would be over here as soon as he possibly could be. We literally left home as soon as we knew that something had happened, then ran into your mom on the way in." Kjelle came further into the room, leaving Yarne behind as he rubbed at his face and tried to not look as pitiful as he did while he was crying. "She's going up to visit your dad, that's why she's not here."

Ribbon scrunched her face a little as she processed that reason for her mother not being in the room as well. "I mean, I guess it makes sense that she'd drop my brother off to babysit me while she goes to visit Dad, but…she could've at least stopped by to make sure I was still doing okay. I'm sure this doctor here is already tired of being with me."

To prove her point, she turned to face the doctor and gave a growl at her, the reaction she received fitting but one that was arguably unprofessional. "You don't have much else keeping you here, your wounds are superficial enough that they'll heal without too much intervention, I'll be stepping out now and leaving you with…these people."

As the doctor stood up from the side of the bed and walked to leave the room, Ribbon called out after her, "These people are my brother and his girlfriend! And their baby too but I don't know if we're supposed to count that yet!"

"Why are you yelling that?" Yarne whined, grabbing part of his hair and tugging on it as he was passed by the doctor on her way out. "She doesn't need to know all of those details, especially when she didn't actually ask for them!"

"I said I don't know if we're supposed to count that yet, I know there's a baby and I don't want to be rude and forget to mention them." Huffing, Ribbon gave a dramatic motion where she threw her shoulders down a little, only to wince from the pain she created in doing so. "I did the same thing earlier when a nurse asked me who Mom was, even though I'd think it would be pretty obvious that she's my mom, but whatever I guess."

As frustrated as he was with how his sister was acting, there was a sense of understanding there that Yarne wasn't going to bring up verbally. He knew that Ribbon had been through something at least slightly traumatic that day, and if she was reacting to that by being more of a nuisance than usual, then he wasn't going to stop her from doing so. "Well, now that doctor's probably thinking this family's all sorts of messed up," he pointed out, coming up closer to the side of the bed in the room so that he could look down at his sister better, even with tears still occasionally rolling down his cheeks. "But I'm sure that's fine, she probably hears a lot of weird things."

"Yeah, probably. Do you know when I'm gonna get out of here? I'm already super tired of being stuck in this room." Ribbon once again made a dramatic motion, this time to gesture as grandly as she could to the spacious room she'd been given, where there was clearly meant to be a second bed that just wasn't there. "I had a roommate when I got here, but they left before Mom even got up here to see me so that was nice."

From where she had made herself comfortable against the wall, just under the pitiful excuse for a TV the room had, Kjelle glanced over at the empty space meant for another bed, chuckled, and then looked back at Ribbon. "So, I'm sure they got a new room so that they didn't have to deal with you."

"I wouldn't be surprised! I'm a lot to handle, you know." Putting a very smug smile on her face, Ribbon seemed happy to know that she was considered to be difficult to be around, but then she quickly dropped the act and began lounging as comfortably as she could in her bed. "But seriously, I want to get out of here. They said there's nothing that's concerning enough to keep me here even overnight, which is a good thing I think."

"That's definitely a good thing," Yarne said with a nod, before narrowing his gaze at his sister slightly. He didn't necessarily want to know the full story of what had happened, but he knew that he had a perfect chance for finding it out.

Almost as if the siblings were on the same mental wavelength, Ribbon sighed and started, "Dad decided he was going to take me out for ice cream after school today. Whenever he picks me up on Fridays he does something nice like that, to keep us out of the house for a little bit before going home. Today we were out even longer, because he wanted to take me to the park after we got our ice cream and since Mom wasn't going to be home for a while, she wasn't going to know a thing unless we told her."

"And that's how you guys ended up getting hit by another car?" Yarne asked, trying to get the whole story straight, and when his sister raised her eyebrows at him, he quickly explained, "Mom told us a bit about what happened on our way up, but since she wasn't there it's not like she's got all the details for herself."

"Oh, right, yeah that's what happened. I wasn't paying attention, I was talking to Dad about which park I wanted to go to and then suddenly there was…" Ribbon's voice trailed off as she seemed to look off into the distance for a moment, her mind processing what she wanted to say next. "It was kind of like a squealing, but there was also a lot of crunching and breaking and then I felt the glass hit my arm and then my leg was pinned between the front seat and the back seat and it was all a mess."

At the descriptions, Yarne began to cry harder yet again, and Kjelle moved herself off of the wall to go comfort him where he stood at Ribbon's bedside. "I think you can take this as him being thankful you're okay," she said, as she gave a few comforting pats and rubs to what she could comfortably reach of Yarne's back. "I don't think he was ready to mentally deal with seeing his little sister like this."

"I-it's not fair that it happened," he croaked, his body beginning to tremble. "If I-I'd only kept with picking her up, then none of this would have happened and we wouldn't be here and I—and they'd—and we'd all be okay and fine!"

"Whoa, calm down, Yarne! I wouldn't blame you for someone else driving badly, and I know Dad won't blame you either." Ribbon paused, scrunching her face a little. "Mom might try to, but that's because she's Mom and she does things like that, but this really isn't your fault! It was the stupid guy driving the other car, he's the one to blame, not you!"

Sniffling loudly, Yarne tried his best to explain further why he was going to blame himself anyway, but every time he opened his mouth to say something, all that came out was garbled nonsense. That led Kjelle to do the speaking yet again, knowing more or less what message he wanted to convey. "You know that your brother takes all of these things personally, and since this happened on the first Friday since he apparently chose working more over guaranteed time spent with you, he's taking it rather hard. I think, deep down, Yarne might know that he has no blame here, but for now just…let him work it out however he wants."

"I guess I can do that," Ribbon conceded with a deep huff, her eyes shifting up onto her brother's crying face. "Man, Yarne, you look so pathetic when you're crying. I sure hope that I don't look like that when I cry."

"The two of you have pretty similar faces, I'd be willing to guess that it looks almost the same. Only difference is that you're not a giant, intimidating-looking man that's crying like a baby." Giving a sly smile, Kjelle waited for Ribbon to return a similar expression, while Yarne scrambled to collect himself so that he didn't feel like they were actively picking on him in there. He knew that they weren't going in on him too hard, but it was still necessary to save a little face in that moment.

Soon enough, a new nurse came into the room, a bit confused at the presence of the two adults; before Ribbon could give her introduction a second time, Yarne managed to explain who they were. "I'm her older brother, and this is my girlfriend, we're here watching over her while our mom is off visiting with our dad."

"You could've made it at least sound like you want to be here," Ribbon said while rolling her eyes, the nurse coming over to her bedside to check and make sure everything was still stable and she was still in good condition. "Like, no one made you have to be with me, you could've gone up with Mom too."

"There is no need for that." Panne's voice rang through the room, as she walked in through the door and met the small crowd that was already gathered there. "I heard word that they're considering letting you leave tonight and came down to see things for myself. Once they discharge you, we'll all go up and visit your father together. He's asleep right now anyway."

"Geez, in bad enough shape to be asleep in the hospital, he must've really gotten hurt." Speaking with a quiet voice, Yarne hadn't wanted anyone to hear what he'd said as he started tearing up for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. However, when Kjelle leaned against him and began stroking his arm, he knew that she'd at least heard him and was doing her best to silently comfort him.

The nurse at Ribbon's side seemed to finish the check and headed to leave the room, but motioned for Panne to follow her out for some reason, which she did without even questioning it. As soon as the door had closed with those two no longer in the room, Ribbon let out a sharp breath. "I'm scared about how Mom's going to handle everything tonight. Her mind isn't exactly in the right place these days, and I'm thinking she's going to pick being around for Dad over being around for me and I…don't know how that's going to work."

"Don't worry, if she makes that choice, we'll step in and take care of you tonight." Kjelle glanced up at Yarne and watched as he gave a very small nod. "This whole situation is garbage and things aren't going to end up going well in some way, but we'll do what we can to help them go at least a little smoother."

"Sleepover at your house? Do I get the comfy chair?" Ribbon's face lit up as she asked the question, and it was clear that allowing her to sleep in the oversized chair would do wonders at healing the wounds she'd had inflicted upon her in the whole mess.

Still, even hearing his sister's exuberance, Yarne had reservations about the whole thing. "I don't know if Mom will let you do that. She'll probably make me sleep at the house with you, if she's even allowed to stay here with Dad overnight. We don't know how bad things are, this might all just be for nothing."

"He wasn't that hurt, I think maybe he'll get to leave in the middle of the night or something. I don't remember what happened with him, though, I was too busy trying not to cry my eyes out over getting cut up by a broken window." Cue Ribbon lifting her bandaged arm as a reminder of what she'd experienced. "But I also don't know…the way he's on a different floor and Mom's making a big deal over seeing him, it makes me think that maybe he got hurt a lot worse than I did."

"We'll have to find out how everything is whenever she lets us go upstairs," Yarne decided, not wanting to dwell too much more on things. He was sure that, end of the day, his dad was going to be just fine, but there was enough going on that made him worried about the current state of affairs. "For now, let's just talk about something else."

Finding a different topic of conversation was difficult, as everything seemed to come back to the accident or being in the hospital in some way. At one point, things looked promising as they were beginning to talk about different video games (much to Kjelle's dismay, as she wasn't overly familiar with the ones in particular being discussed), but the moment Ribbon's mind was set on talking about games she'd played with classmates, she was back to discussing the accident, particularly how much trouble her classmates would give her when she came in to school on Monday with bandages. "They already bully me over so many things I can't help, I don't want them bullying me over this, too."

Yarne's heart, which was already very tired and over the day, seemed to miss a beat as he heard his sister's worry. "I thought we'd handled the bullying problem? Are they really picking on you again?"

"Sure are. Turns out, being one of the last of a whole culture is just a big reason for the mean kids to start being meaner. Especially since Mom came to the school and did a whole talk about taguel culture and so everyone knows she's my mom, and that I'm getting a brother or sister that's super younger than me." Ribbon seemed to shrink back into the bed as she continued, "Now they're going to bully me for that, and for the fact that I got in a car crash that hurt me. It's just going to suck so bad to be me."

"Let me at these bullies, I'll show them what for," Kjelle replied, curling one hand into a fist and knocking it against her leg, to demonstrate what she would do. "No one's allowed to pick on someone who never did anything to deserve it."

"One, you're not fighting a bunch of twelve-year-olds," Yarne said, "and two, even if I was going to let you fight a bunch of twelve-year-olds, I wouldn't right now because they're mean and they'd hurt you just as much as you'd hurt them. At least, right now they would, that isn't always the case."

"I hate that you're right on both of those points."

"Okay, can we stop talking about how you're not going to do anything to help me out and maybe come up with ways you can help? I don't think Mom or Dad can really do anything to solve this problem." Ribbon puffed her cheeks out, slowly exhaling the air she held in them. "Well, except maybe keep me home from school until everything's back to normal, then I'll only have the normal bullying to deal with."

Yarne closed his eyes and sighed, not wanting to think about his sister being bullied again in the first place. "I have an idea, I'll handle it for you and then hopefully you won't have to ever have to deal with it again."

"What's your plan, if you're gonna handle it yourself? I don't know if I trust you to do it all on your own. You might just…" Her nose crinkled as Ribbon looked straight at her brother. "You might just make it worse."

"And maybe I will, but it's better than doing nothing at all. Just leave this one to me." Yarne didn't have the slightest idea of what he was going to do in order to solve Ribbon's problem, but by putting it on his shoulders instead of anyone else's, he was playing the role of protective big brother as best as he could. "Now let's talk about something else, again, please and thank you."

While moving to a different topic didn't work yet again, it was at least a good enough diversion to keep things moving around until the door to the room reopened and Panne and a different hospital worker came inside. "They're going to keep you here for a couple more hours to keep an eye on your leg where it hit the seat in the car," Panne explained, doing her best to make eye contact with Ribbon as she was talking to her. "Therefore, while that is going on, I will be going back upstairs to see Ricken. Yarne, would you like to come with?"

His initial response got lodged in his throat, unable to force the words out due to the lump that was blocking them. He was able to nod meekly, though, breaking away from where Kjelle had kept herself right next to him so that he could approach his mother, a worried look on his face. "Does this mean I get to keep Kjelle here while you're gone?" Ribbon asked, nearly knocking her bandaged arm into the new nurse while she was gesturing toward Kjelle, who had decided now that she didn't have Yarne there she could afford to sit down for a moment.

"Yes, that's exactly what it means. Someone has to be in here to keep you supervised, after all. Come now, Yarne, we don't want to keep him waiting." Without so much as a pause or a goodbye, Panne was leaving the room once again, and Yarne was scrambling to follow her, but not acting nearly as rude and making sure to say he'd be back to the others.

Once they were out in the hall, he found it within himself to speak to his mother once more. "Why are you just taking me? Ribbon was alone before we got here, I know that her needing supervision is a lie."

"I felt it would be inappropriate to bring your girlfriend into your father's room while he's sleeping. Even if he has woken up since I came down here, he would still most likely appreciate it being family-only going in to see him." Panne spoke slowly, as if she was searching for the words she wanted to say, but once she'd finished she was already walking down the hall, leaving Yarne behind as he processed what had been said. He was able to catch up to her with ease, given the length of his legs and how small the steps she was taking were, and once he was at her side he slowed his pace to match hers.

While it was true that they did have to go upstairs to get to Ricken's room, it was just up to the next floor, which was filled with rooms identical to the one Ribbon was currently in, minus the fact that there were many meant for just one patient. "If he's on this floor, then things can't be that bad," Yarne assured himself, watching Panne nod out of the corner of his eye. "I was starting to get worried that he was super hurt or something horrible and you just weren't telling me everything."

"That would be because I haven't told you everything, yes."

Somehow, that being the case didn't surprise Yarne as much as it should have. "Then I guess I'll find out what you haven't told me when we get in there to see Dad, huh?"

Panne didn't answer, instead picking up her pace just a little to get down the new hallway faster. The room they were looking for was near the end of the hall, and the door was propped open when they got outside of it. She knocked on it once, then twice, and when she heard no response she pushed it open further and motioned for Yarne to follow her inside. There wasn't a space for a second bed in the room, and it was much smaller than the room downstairs that Ribbon had, but it felt exactly the same in terms of sterileness and coldness, as if bad things had taken place in there before.

As much as he hadn't wanted them to, Yarne's eyes immediately landed on his father once he was inside the room, and the small gasp he gave was of genuine surprise. There was a bandage all the way around the top of Ricken's head, covering most of his eyes as it made its way around, in addition to a separate one taped onto his left cheek. "The big one is holding a stapled wound in place for the moment," Panne explained, knowing exactly what Yarne was looking at, "and the smaller one is for a more superficial cut that still needed some stitches to get it back together."

"Those are going to scar horribly…" Yarne remarked, raising a hand to cross his own forehead roughly along where his father's large bandage was located. "That's going to be really weird to have to get used to seeing."

"Considering it could have been worse, I'll take him having facial scars compared to, say, losing an eye or his life." With a low hum, Panne went right to the side of the bed, sitting down in a chair that had been pulled closer at some point, and looked across the room at her son to see what he did next. "Well, Yarne? Are you planning on having a seat while we wait for him to wake up?"

His feet felt like they were frozen in place, even though Yarne did want to sit down in one of the room's other chairs so that he wasn't just standing around. "I think I'm good for now," he lied, not wanting to tell his mother that he was immobilized with his worries about what he was seeing. "Do you think Dad realizes we're in here with him?"

"He's merely napping right now, don't speak like he's on death's door and we're having our last visit with him." Reaching out to brush her hand against Ricken's arm, Panne seemed to flinch when he recoiled slightly. "See, he's very much alive in this moment. It's just been a…stressful day for him, to say the least."

"Mom, it hasn't just been stressful for him, you don't have to pretend you're not hurting by all of this." Yarne could see it in his mother's face, the way her gaze had fallen onto her husband's body, how she was worried beyond anything he'd ever seen from her in his life. "I can't imagine what you've had to go through today, with having to deal with all of this."

She opened her mouth slightly, almost like she was going to refute that claim, before she nodded slowly. "You're right, this has been stressful for me as well. To go from being in a situation I willingly put myself in, to being thrown into this without knowing if they were alive or dead…" She touched her tongue to her teeth a few times as she thought about what else she wanted to say, before adding on, "The last time I felt this genuinely helpless, I was sitting bedside with my last living relative as he passed on. This situation is different, obviously, but it still hurts the same."

Yarne tried to step closer, but his feet feeling like they were encased in ice had not faded and he was unable to make any forward progress. "That's the first time you've ever brought up any of that before, you know. I didn't know you were there for losing family members."

"I don't want to discuss that further with you, Yarne. I need to mentally be here for your father, not dwelling on the past." The sad look that had taken hold on Panne's face made it clear that she'd struck a nerve within herself that she didn't want anything to do with, and as much as Yarne wanted to know more about what she'd referred to, he couldn't bear to break her down further. Even as Ricken started waking up and talking to them (he was his normal self, bandages and all), there was the desire to derail what was being discussed to get Panne to talk more about the pieces of her past she glossed over, but it wasn't the time or place for it. She knew where she needed to keep her mind, and Yarne knew he had to respect that as much as he could.

Sometimes, tragedy could break families apart, and other times, it could bring them together despite all of their differences and hard feelings, and that day made Yarne remember that no matter how much he couldn't stand his mother sometimes, she was devoted to her family first and foremost and that meant him as well. Just seeing her refer to him again and again as she talked to Ricken while they passed the time before doctors and nurses came by to do routine checks was all he needed to know that she loved him, all things considered. Of course, that feeling of being loved and accepted meant that he was more than willing to help out however he could in the aftermath of that day, which did result in Ribbon coming to stay with him and Kjelle for the night while Panne fought to get to stay at Ricken's side overnight, but he'd always cared for his sister and was willing to do that for her anyway.

---

Given that their monthly dinner night for the previous week had in fact been postponed a week just due to general craziness with schedules conflicting with the normal time, when family gathered over at the small house the Tuesday following the accident, the mood was far too somber for anything of note to happen. For all of the years that Yarne had wished that things could be remotely normal between him and his parents, he wouldn't have expected to get that wish granted by having to sit at dinner with no one saying a word to each other, aside from the occasional comment on how good the food tasted. He couldn't bear to look at either of his parents—his mother for the same reasons as always, and his father due to the still-stapled wound across his forehead—and he was only able to look at Ribbon whenever she spoke up, her having come away with just assorted bandages that still stuck to her arm in various places.

Outside of that, there were only two notable things that happened that night, things that did their best to wash away the pain and suffering that was clearly still being felt by everyone in some way. Ironically enough, both involved talking about the rather evident elephants in the room that were hard to ignore, one more than the other, and both came as bookends in the same conversation. The first had been right when Yarne's parents had come inside and Panne, ever the one ready to get down to the point of the matter if she felt like it, had bluntly asked how far along Kjelle was, while one of them stood in the kitchen and the other was staring from across the room. "Well that's one way to ask about that," Kjelle grumbled under her breath, looking at Yarne as he gave a sheepish, apologetic look for his mother's behavior. "But I actually know the answer without having to look, so there's that. Thirteen weeks as of today."

"I'm assuming that's a big deal, given every detail I know about your particular health problems?" Panne continued, making it very clear that she didn't care that Kjelle didn't seem to want to be having that discussion so openly, given that she tried to hide by going further into the kitchen. "I could have asked someone at the clinic about this, but I'm sure they would have kept it secret, despite our…unique relationship."

"I mean, you clearly know that there's a lot that could go wrong here, so yes, the fact that we've gotten this far without any issues is a big deal." Pursing her lips together to brace for whatever was going to come next, Kjelle was met with a pleasant silence on the matter, as the conversation temporarily shifted to talking about the aftermath of that weekend's hospital activities.

The second notable thing was said not long after Panne had filled them in on how long they'd been at the hospital before they were finally released. "It was perfect timing that they decided that they could allow Ricken to continue healing at home, although quite awkward when I brought him over to the clinic with me this afternoon," she said, her hands beginning to idly rest on top of her stomach, its rounded state hard to ignore any longer. "I was fully intending on going by myself, to talk about some test results that they'd gotten back, but he was able to come along with me."

"Test results? What kind of test did you need taken?" Yarne's question was asked while he was looking at his girlfriend, not his mother, in case this was something that she was going to be facing shortly as well. "Was it because something was wrong?"

"Not…exactly." The slight hesitation in Panne's answer made it clear that she weighing the truth versus what she wanted to say, especially as she continued. "As a woman of 'advanced maternal age', there are specific things that they want to check for ahead of time, just to make absolute sure that everything is fine with the baby. I wouldn't say that anything was discovered that could be considered something being 'wrong', but there were some strong likelihoods that we needed to address."

Under his breath, Yarne muttered, "I don't like the sound of that." He really didn't, but he didn't want to ask any further questions and get any answers that he also wasn't going to like, whether they were elaborations or flat-out rejections. Instead, he let those words bounce around in his head all night, going so far as to think about them as he lay down in bed after everyone had left and the house had been mostly cleaned from the dinner. He knew his mother too well to know that she wasn't hiding something in those words, but he didn't have the slightest idea of what she could have been referring to.

After letting the cryptic statement eat at his mind the entire next day at work, he headed home that afternoon with a solution to the problem. He was going to bring it up with Kjelle and see if she had deciphered what it had meant, and if she hadn't he was going to ask her nicely if she could ask her doctor next time she went in for a visit to see if she could get answers that way. That was what he'd decided on, and that was fully his plan that he was going to act on—until something happened that made him forget all about what his mother had said, because there was something more important to focus on.

It came later that evening, as he was beginning to grow suspicious about how late it had gotten without word from his girlfriend about why she wasn't home yet. Just as he was deciding he was going to text her and see what the holdup was, and to see if she wanted him to start dinner before she got back, he heard his phone starting to ring, a picture of Kjelle popping up as it was her number calling him. He answered it at once, asking his usual hello that he gave when it was the love of his life on the other side of the call. "Yarne? Is that you?" a voice that definitely wasn't Kjelle's asked, startling him into rapidly asking who it was that had her phone. "Just…tell me, is it you? Yes or no."

"It is me," he replied with a breathy voice, an uneasy feeling beginning to wash over him. "But who are you? You shouldn't be using Kjelle's phone, whoever you are."

There was a pause on the other side, followed by a sigh. "I'm Effie. Remember, we've met before? I know I shouldn't be using her phone, but I know thanks to all of her stories about you that if I used my own to call you, you wouldn't answer. And you answering is pretty important right about now."

"Why's that?" Already the gears in Yarne's mind were beginning to turn at breakneck speed, as he began to ponder all of the possibilities that had put someone in this position. "Oh gods, don't tell me that—"

"I'm on my way to get you, provided I remember the way to your house on my own. It's a long story that I'd rather tell you in person, but…short version, I knew from the moment that Charlotte mentioned that she'd called the emergency contact on file that we screwed up, and I couldn't let you be in the dark about this." There was a sense of urgency in Effie's voice, something that was only making Yarne feel even more uneasy about what was going on. "Damn, though, she was just telling me yesterday that there's been a lot of suffering in your family already and now this…"

Just knowing that something had gone wrong was enough to make Yarne cry out in anguish, dropping his phone down onto his bare foot and causing him to yelp in the surprise and the pain. Distraught on multiple levels, he had to bend down and pick up his phone, just to find that the call had gotten ended at some point in the whole exchange, and now he was going to have to wait for Effie to be there in the flesh to hear more about what was happening. He was an anxious wreck as he got himself dressed in a somewhat decent way, at least putting on a pair of shorts that weren't covered in little sheep so that when Effie showed up, he wouldn't look like he was ready to crawl into bed. His current shirt situation was equally as dire, but at least the ratty old t-shirt he was wearing had been a going-out shirt at one point in its long lifetime, and he didn't have the heart to find a new one to wear.

He was informed that his ride had arrived by the sound of a quick honk outside, and with barely remembering to grab his phone and wallet he was out the door, seeing Effie's car sitting just behind his in front of the house. As he approached, he recognized the little backpack that Kjelle took with her to work sitting in the passenger's seat, with her nowhere to be seen, and a grim look plastered across Effie's face. "Get in quickly, we don't want to get there too late," she called through the open window, causing Yarne to nearly stumble over his own feet as he picked up his pace.

Once he was inside and barely buckled, she peeled out of her parking spot and was heading down the road much faster than she should have been, zero regard for the law (and the nerves of the person riding with her). "So, should probably get to telling you what happened before we get there and you're getting asked a million questions with no answers to give, because why would you know? You don't visit her at work." While Effie spoke, she seemed to be tightening her grip on the wheel, a behavior Yarne recognized as being one that stemmed from fear of what was happening. "But, problem is, I wasn't there when it happened either. I was in a training room with a client, finishing up a session, when I heard Charlotte screaming for me to get my ass out to the lobby as fast as I could."

"So this happened in the lobby?" Yarne asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible to give Effie the illusion that he wasn't on the verge of having a complete breakdown. "That's…a lot better than what I was scared I was going to hear."

"Oh, yeah, definitely in the lobby. Ever since she told us she's expecting no one's let her go anywhere near the equipment without someone else with her, which has mostly meant she's been doing desk work and the occasional restock of the light items." Giving small nods as she recalled all of those details, Effie came to a sudden stop at a light she'd just about blown through, looking over at Yarne to see his face covered in sheer panic. "Sorry about that, like I said, we don't want to get there too late and I'm being a bit reckless."

"Stop being reckless so maybe we can wreck less," he replied, clutching at his chest with his heart pounding harder than he'd ever felt. Even just days before, learning about his father and sister getting hit by another car while driving, hadn't built this much worry inside of him because he hadn't had to deal with someone who wasn't familiar with his quirks and fears and whatnot. "Can you get to the part where you ended up with Kjelle's phone and her belongings and stuff?"

"Right, well, I already told you I wasn't there when it happened, but when I did get my client off to the changing room I went up to the lobby and Charlotte was on the phone with emergency services, and so I kind of heard what she told them?" Noticing that the light had changed, Effie floored it so that they were once again speeding down the road, although not quite as fast as before. "Something about how they were just about to do shift change, since Charlotte's the night gal and Kjelle isn't, and so Kjelle was standing up from behind the desk and she sort of just collapsed and—"

"She's dead, isn't she?" He hadn't given the question any thought, he hadn't realized he had said those exact words until they were cutting through wherever Effie's sentence was headed and stopping her voice dead in its tracks. Surprised that he'd said that himself, Yarne raised a hand to cover his mouth, before the choking sobs began rolling out.

"—no, I swear to you she isn't, they had her awake before they took her away and she was…well I'm not going to say she was fine, but she wasn't dead. That's the truth." Effie sounded stunned at how that had been the conclusion that had been jumped to, but she kept going regardless. "They wanted to get her looked at because Charlotte heard her hit her head on the desk when she fell and that's pretty concerning. Plus, with all of the problems she's told us about with her health and the baby it was just safest this way."

Although he was beyond thankful that he'd just heard those words, Yarne couldn't bring himself to say anything, his crying having elevated to the deep, soul-shaking sorts of cries and sobs that no one was strong enough to pull themselves out of immediately. "But then, while I was in the back getting her things to bring with me, since I'm off now too and obviously I'm going to check on my friend, I heard Charlotte up front cursing up a storm about something." Effie once again gave a few small nods, assuring herself that she was recalling things correctly. "She realized too late that we never got around to properly marking which number in Kjelle's file we were supposed to call, since she added yours but couldn't remove the other one and…"

She trailed off, listening as Yarne began knocking a fist against the door of the car, him well-aware of what that particular problem meant. "So that's why I ended up calling you with Kjelle's phone, because I knew you'd answer it and I needed to get it to her anyway. Poor thing, all of this is going to be super difficult for her to handle." That was where Effie paused, before giving Yarne a side-eyed look. "Her mom…knows about things, right?"

He nodded as best as he could, hopefully getting that message across. "Well that's one bright side to this, then. Would be pretty horrible if she found out about the baby because of something going wrong with her daughter at work."

"B-but," Yarne started, the single word feeling like a knife as it came out of his mouth, and any subsequent words were stopped in their tracks by another round of crying, and Effie, unsure of how to help him to get his words out, merely reached over to awkwardly pat his leg in comfort. That was not the right idea, as he tried pushing her away immediately, almost causing her to swerve the car out of control with her other hand.

From then on, they weren't trying to speak and certainly weren't trying to touch each other in any way, until he'd calmed down enough to form proper words. "But the last time she spoke to her parents, things were bad. This isn't the way to fix those wounds." Yarne didn't want to imagine the guilt that one (or both) of Kjelle's parents were feeling after finding out something had gone wrong, but he knew he was going to be facing it soon enough.

Pulling up outside of the emergency entrance to the hospital invoked a new wave of emotions coursing through Yarne, but that was where Effie dropped him off, telling him she'd park and meet with him when she could. He shuffled out of the car holding Kjelle's bag and trying his hardest not to cry so hard that everything was dribbling out of his face in public, but by the time he got to the doors he'd already failed at that. Unfortunately for him, right inside the door turning around to see who was causing such a scene, was the very person that he was dreading seeing on an emotional level.

"You want to tell me what's going on, or should I wait for someone who might've been there to do the job?" The question was asked in a strong, yet clearly choked up voice, one that made Yarne's crying come on even harder. "Taking that as a 'wait for someone else' answer. Guess you're not exactly handling this well either, huh?"

He wasn't able to answer that with a proper response, so Yarne did the next best thing he could think of and grabbed Sully in a one-armed hug, not realizing that the decision to do that was going to make them both even more upset about things. They stayed there in that partial embrace until Effie joined them, looking between the two confused until it clicked in her mind that she didn't have any reason to be concerned. "I tried to get here before you did, ma'am," she said, looking at Sully with a slight grimace on her face, "but I clearly didn't do the job right. Have you been here long?"

"I'd walked in maybe a minute before I heard Yarne's sniffling coming this way. Let me guess, you're the foul-mouthed snot who called me telling me my daughter literally knocked herself out working?" Even though she still sounded emotionally compromised, there was a venom to Sully's voice as she spoke to Effie, one that was entirely misplaced.

Thankfully, Effie was able to set that one straight immediately. "No ma'am, that was one of the other ladies who works at the fitness center. I was in the back getting Kjelle's things when that call happened, so there's no way it could've been me."

"Right. Well, if I ever see that woman responsible for telling me what was going on, I'm not holding back on telling her how inappropriate her delivery of the news was. Damn girl had me thinking that something way worse had happened." With a shake of her head, Sully carefully moved Yarne's arm off of her so that she could freely walk around, and headed to properly enter the hospital. Effie went to follow, but realized that Yarne seemed to be stuck in place behind her. As she turned to gesture for him to follow, she saw that he was carefully watching the older woman, making sure that she got inside before he moved at all.

"You're worried about her, huh?" Effie asked, her voice a bit lower, and when Yarne nodded she seemed to smile sadly. "I get it. Kjelle's told me a lot about her relationship with her parents in the time we've been working together and even though she always says they don't love her as much as they should…this sort of thing has to be hard for them."

Nodding again, Yarne wished he could put his exact thoughts on the matter into words, but he knew that his ability to do that was severely impacted by how genuinely screwed up his emotional state was in that moment. Instead of trying to force anything, he merely went ahead and walked into the building proper, Effie sighing and following right behind him. He needed to know that he had people who were hurting in their own ways there with him, or else he wouldn't have ever made it to the reception desk to ask about where they needed to go, only to find out that they'd need to sit in the waiting room until they were able to rejoin the person they were there to see.

That hour seemed like the longest wait of his life, where he cried and sobbed and went through most of a pack of tissues some kind soul gave him when they saw how upset he was. During the wait, Effie had done her best to explain everything she knew to Sully, who listened stoically and occasionally muttered some explicit phrases under her breath, but never once shed a tear at what she was hearing. It was only when they were finally told they were able to go back to the room that the crying started from her, which in turn made Yarne's crying worse and Effie's eyes tear up slightly at the scene. Emotionally compromised or not, there was an attendant waiting to escort them back and so they were more or less forced to go, the walk filled with heavy steps and loud sniffles.

Unlike when Yarne had come to the hospital a few days prior, they were still in the emergency wing of the building when they were brought to a closed door, which the attendant knocked on, waiting for an answer on the other side, and slowly opened to reveal a closed curtain on the inside. The three looked between each other, Effie taking a step back to show that she recognized that family came first, and after exchanging a couple of glances it was wordlessly decided that a mother deserved to see her child before anyone else—although before she pushed open the curtain she reached behind her to grab Yarne's hand to bring him in with her.

The room on the other side of the curtain was tiny, barely big enough for all the machinery plus the bed plus the chairs that were sitting along the wall, and so when three people and the attendant filed in, it was even more crowded than imaginable. There were lots of noises pinging here and there from the various machines, screens reading off different vital readings at a rapid clip. Kjelle was awake in the bed, watching them all come in with an expression of shame plastered on her face as she pulled her blanket up over her a bit more than it previously was, and when she realized that they were all in various states of crying she had to avert her gaze to keep herself from joining them. "I don't know why you're all here," she said quietly, still not looking anywhere close to the three visitors and finding a spot to focus in the partially-emptied IV bag that was currently attached to her arm. "I could've handled this with just, you know, one of you showing up."

"Well, you've got all of us instead," Sully replied, pushing one of the chairs over so that it was as close to the bed as she could get it, sitting down and looking at the readings the machine was giving rather than in her daughter's direction. "Have they told you anything about what happened? None of this is screaming at me that there's a problem."

"They haven't determined anything yet. Can't even tell me if I actually hit my head when I fell or not, but it doesn't hurt so I'm pretty sure I didn't." Still holding the blanket with one hand just under her chin, Kjelle rolled her head over to look in the other direction, now facing toward the curtain that had been closed when the attendant had left the room. "We'll probably find out that nothing's wrong at all but…this is the worst. Super embarrassing."

"Something's obviously wrong, I mean, a healthy person doesn't just pass out like that." As she was the one who was least emotionally wrecked at the moment, Effie hopped up onto the small countertop in the room, leaving the second and final chair open for Yarne to sit down in, even though he seemed more content with standing back against the wall trying not to keep crying. "Why are you downplaying things like that?"

"I'm not downplaying anything, I'm just saying it like it is. The whole ride over here they were running tests and everything came back within my perfectly normal limits every single time. Even sitting in here, there hasn't been a single 'abnormal' thing they'd been able to find." With a sigh, Kjelle added, "Plus, there's no way that they're looking at me as a healthy person in this place, so there's that too."

While he liked hearing that nothing was wrong, the fact that they were once again in the cold and sterile place that he'd just spent time in recently had Yarne considering all negative possibilities. "Y-you said everything's been coming back normal, does that mean that they're going to let you leave soon?" he asked, trying to sound hopeful instead of upset. "Or are they going to want to keep you here until they can say nothing really is wrong?"

"I…don't know how to answer that." Finally looking straight at someone, there was a clear pain in Kjelle's eyes as she locked gazes with Yarne, who stiffened up at seeing how hurt she was. "They're certain nothing's wrong with me as I am, but that doesn't mean that there's not anything wrong with…"

He swallowed down, trying to push away any words that wanted to escape to acknowledge what she'd just implied, and in response she moved the blanket down from where she was holding it, exposing her stomach and all of the sticky pads connecting it to the machines next to her. "You didn't fall forward when you collapsed, did you?" Yarne squeaked out, bringing his hands to both cover his mouth before he started sliding down the wall, afraid of what the answer he was going to get might be."

"I woke up on my back, so I'm pretty sure I didn't, but they're still super worried about that. At the very least, they're going to be sending me to the doctor for a proper scan if they can't determine anything here, which…yay for that." Rolling her eyes as she turned her head in a couple of sarcastic circles against her pillow, Kjelle puckered her lips for a moment as she thought about what else she wanted to say. "That's really all I know at this point. Sorry that I can't give much more information than this."

No one could blame her for not knowing more, especially when it seemed there wasn't much to know at the moment, and so the room fell silent outside of the machines doing their job. A knock came at the door a few minutes later, a nurse coming in to adjust something on one of the machines, then stepping out without saying anything to anyone; she was replaced soon after by a couple other professionals, bringing with them a new bag to hang from the pole and get running into her system. One of those people spoke, explaining to the visitors that it was just a run of fluids to make sure that dehydration wasn't the culprit for what had happened, even though it wasn't likely to be the case. Once they were out of the room, the relative silence resumed, no one knowing what else there was to say.

Finally, after giving everyone some time to come up with words to use in the moment, Effie sighed and hopped back down off the counter, her muscular build giving a resounding thud as she hit the floor. "I'm feeling pretty awkward being here during family time, so I'm going to head out," she explained, making sure that Kjelle's backpack had made it into the room with them (it had, Yarne had it slung over one of his shoulders) before side-stepping toward the curtain out. "Should I just go back out to the waiting room, or can I go home and trust that you'll all get where you need to go safely without me?"

"I didn't drive myself here," Yarne followed up with, feeling a sense of worry that in not doing that, he'd caused a bit of a headache that now needed solving. "So either I need to get taken home to get the car now, or…" He looked over at Sully, who seemed to be taking in what was being said. "Would you be able to get me, and maybe Kjelle too, home when we're done here?"

She gave a short, brash laugh at the request. "Of course I can do that. I don't plan on leaving here until there's answers given, but if you need a ride home I'm more than happy to provide it to you."

"Mom, you're not serious about staying that long, are you?" Kjelle asked, looking at the clock in the room to see what time it was and cringing slightly at how late it had gotten without her realizing it. "I know that you're going to need to get up for work tomorrow and—"

"Your health comes first, period. I'm staying as long as they'll let me, which in a room like this? That's as long as they keep you in here." Laughing again, Sully raised her phone, which was opened to a screen of messages that she'd been in the middle of going through. "Besides, I've already gotten all that taken care of, I'm not going in tomorrow even if you get to leave right now. You know how this works."

Taking another step closer to the curtain, Effie smiled at everyone else in the room. "Keep me updated on how things go, I was supposed to be off tomorrow but I'm already claiming your shift as mine, Kjelle. You just focus on getting better, or whatever it is you need to do to keep this from happening again, and I'll see you around." With that, she pushed the curtain open enough to get through it, stepped to the other side, and then closed it behind her so that she could open the door and leave without another word.

The energy in the room didn't change even with Effie leaving, because they still didn't have answers for what was going on and the floor nurses were only coming in every so often to check on things and occasionally call to replenish the hanging bag of fluids. At one point, Yarne looked at the clock for himself and realized that it was so far past normal dinner time that eating anything would be disruptive to his sleep schedule, and since that was clearly already going to be thrown out of whack due to anxieties about what was going on, he chose to step outside and call his job to tell them he wouldn't be going in the next morning.

There was no one at the office as late as he was calling that could handle a call-off like that, but he left his message and explained that it wasn't going to be a reoccurring thing to need to give up his shifts so suddenly; before he went back into the room, he paced around the emergency floor to see if he could find anything to snack on. A vending machine was his preferred source of food, but he couldn't find one, although there was the smell of food coming from behind the nurses' station desk. He had to merely slap a brave face on and walk past it without looking to see if there was anything that anyone was willing to share, knowing that if they left soon, he'd be asking to stop somewhere for a quick bite if possible.

When he returned to the room, he opened the door and heard a different voice than should have been inside speaking through the curtain. It was common knowledge that someone had just entered the room, especially as he blundered through closing the door behind him so that he could open the curtain, but who he assumed was a nurse or doctor kept talking regardless. "As far as we can tell, this stemmed from your heart rate plummeting out of nowhere. Based on your charts and the medications you're listed as being on, that seems to be a safe bet, although not a guaranteed one. Has this happened before?"

"Not as far as I know," Kjelle replied, a timidness in her voice. "Should it have? I know that it's one of those things that's listed on, like, all of those warnings but…"

"Oh, no, if it hasn't happened before then we can connect whatever caused it to being connected to your pregnancy as well, which…raises other concerns that will need to be addressed with your current medical staff. We noticed that you're listed as being seen at a high-risk clinic, they will be more than capable of working through this with you." The speaker paused, which gave Yarne time to come inside properly and not feel like he was interrupting things. He looked apologetic as the doctor saw him, confused about who he was and why he was there, but after being assured that this wasn't a stranger just walking into the room, she continued to talk. "I'm really sorry that there isn't much else we can offer for you right now, other than recommending rest, continuing light duties as able, and scheduling a follow-up with your normal doctor as soon as possible."

"I mean, you're letting me walk out of here tonight, that's about as much as I can ask for right now." Kjelle looked around the room, first at her mother, then over at Yarne still standing in front of the curtain, then back to the doctor. "Sure, it sucks knowing that you can't give me a straight answer about what happened to me, but you're not here telling me that I'm dying or the baby's dead and that's what matters."

Just a few of those words sent up red flags in Yarne's mind, and he quickly spat out, "H-hey, are we really, super sure about that second one there? I'm just kind of worried about that, since I can clearly tell that Kjelle's not dead but not so much on the baby part."

The doctor laughed, looking at him with an amused crinkle to her eyes. "I take it that you're not very well versed in what these machines have been doing this entire time. Don't worry, everyone here is perfectly safe, but just to give you the peace of mind…let me go see if I can get a mobile unit to swing down real quick before discharge."

Without any hesitation, she left the room, and as soon as the door closed behind her Kjelle was loudly groaning in the bed. "Why did you have to ask about that?" she lamented, sounding completely defeated. "We were going to get to leave before midnight, but now we're going to have to wait even longer thanks to you."

"I'm…sorry?" he replied, understanding how frustrating it must have been to feel like the ordeal there that evening was further from ending than expected. "I'm just worried about that. You know me, always worrying about everything, even when I guess I'm not supposed to be worrying."

"I'm going to be the voice of reason here on this one," Sully said, keeping her voice as impartial as possible as she cleared her throat and followed up with, "because I'm on Yarne's side this time. I don't doubt that everything's fine, they wouldn't be sending you home like this, but damn, a chance to get to see my grandbaby without needing to pester you about it? I'm taking this one."

"The two of you agreeing about something like this, I never thought I'd see it." She still sounded annoyed about what had just transpired, and that annoyance did not fade even slightly even after the nurses came in and unhooked everything from her, because that meant that her chance for freedom was still not coming anytime soon.

When the mobile ultrasound cart was rolled in, it was nearing eleven o'clock that night and everyone in the room was exhausted and starving. They'd all resorted to eating crackers that had been sitting in one of the pouches of Kjelle's backpack for moments when she needed something to snack on, but that was not enough to even take the edge off of the hunger. So when that cart came in and the friendly tech greeted them with a yawn and a wave, the realization sank in that they were that much closer to getting to leave and get a proper meal. "I heard we just want to check that there's absolutely nothing wrong with a little baby in here?" the tech asked, yawning a second time as she began getting into position for the quick scan. "Usually I like to have a second person present to read the images for me, but I'm just going to do a short pass-over and we'll see what we can find. If it wasn't so late, I'd suggest doing a more thorough check, but I'm sure you'd love to get out of here."

"I'll probably have one done when I see my doctor next anyway, so…no big deal if it's not a full scan. Just tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it." The exhaustion in Kjelle's voice made it clear that she wasn't looking for anything more than the bare minimum, but the tech laughed and assured her that, based entirely on how she was still laying in the bed, there wasn't a single thing that needed to be done.

The sight of the cart had triggered some of Yarne's panicky feelings, so he'd spent the majority of the set-up time looking everywhere but in its direction, tapping his fingers on his legs and trying to keep himself from needing to leave the room. Even though this scan had been at his request, he still felt it hard to actually watch as it got started, but the moment the tech started talking about what she was showing on her screen, he took in a deep breath and looked at the screen that had been brought in on the cart. It was pretty similar to the images he'd gotten to see there in the office the day they'd first found out there really was a baby, but this time, it was less looking at nonsensical shapes and more looking at something that had a defined figure to it.

"Little one seems to be resting right now," the tech explained, "because usually we'd be getting a bit more movement than this, even on a rather…blurry reading. But I've done enough of these to know that this is completely normal behavior, and…" She trailed off as she moved her wand to a different angle, where a bit more of a facial profile could just barely be located. "Yeah, I don't have much else to say. Looks normal to me."

"A damn miracle, right there," Sully said quietly, her tiredness causing what would probably have been a much louder statement to come off as subdued. There was no need for her to explain why she felt that way, because Yarne was feeling the same way as well—and when he found his arm being grabbed by one of Kjelle's hands, he knew that the feeling was mutual with her as well.

Seeing that vague outline of what was becoming a tiny face reminded them all that even in the darkest moments, where things just felt like they were falling apart, there was always going to be some good to be found. For now, while they didn't have answers for what had put them there that evening, they did have the reminder that the precious, unexpected life among them was perfectly fine where it grew, and nothing could top that over time. But in that moment, the relief of getting to leave that hospital room and go home to sleep in their own bed was fairly close to bringing them a better feeling, however fleeting it might be.