how can you change what is altered

[forthsofar]

Somehow, she manages to stop the bleeding, that strip of sailcloth turning into as close to a lifeline as it's possible for a thing to be. A group of them get Jamie to the ship, to something approximating safety; the pirates have seen this kind of injury before, and know more than the rest of them what to do. It's so easy to let them take control of the situation, to salvage from it what they can.

Clothes splashed with blood, Rosie wanders belowdeck, passing hammocks and coils of rope until she finds a hidden nook in the ribs of the ship. It's narrow and shadowed, barely large enough for her to fit inside, but she climbs in and sits, folding her arms around her bent knees to make herself just that much smaller. She stays there, numb and silent and waiting for whatever happens next. Her eyes close, just for a minute.

When they open again, it's to the sight of a stark white ceiling and a fluorescent light so bright it almost shocks her. There's a slow, steady beeping coming from somewhere nearby, the strange sensation of tape against the back of one of her hands keeping something in place. She lies there in confusion for another moment more, then tries to sit up, the motion slow and full of so much effort she shakes with it.

"What..." she starts, looking to one side of the bed--the hospital bed, she's at a hospital now, somehow--and then the other. "What happened to the ship?"

Comments

[awickedtime]

Nick has barely left the room since they moved Rosie to the bed. He's been home to shower and change but, mostly, he's lived on shitty machine coffee and snacks. When she speaks he startles and, suddenly, he finds himself absurdy close to tears.

"Oh shit," he says softly. "You're back."

[forthsofar]

He's folded into that chair at her bedside like he's become accustomed to it--and, she supposes, he has been. The realization that he's been here as much as possible, that they all have, Sabrina and Charlie too, maybe even Neil, makes her breath catch and vision blur. "Nick," she says, her voice rough from lack of use. "I was...it felt so real. So horrible, and real, and..."

She trails off, just reaching for him, needing to be held. There's things in the way, wires and monitors and the plastic tubing of the IV still sunk into the vein at the back of her hand, but she has every faith he'll manage despite it.

[awickedtime]

She reaches for him and he pushes out of the chair without hesitation. Sabrina and Charlie are curled together in a chair and Nick doesn't wake them, just slipping up onto the bed with Rosie and wrapping his arms around her, careful to avoid tubing and trailing wires. He lets her settle against him.

"I'm so glad to see you, Rosie."

[forthsofar]

She fits herself against him, around him, chasing that need just to be close and pull what reassurance she can from the contact. Even having been told by everyone who'd been through something like it before that it was only temporary, that it would end and they'd be returned home, she'd felt the loss of this more keenly than she'd fully realized until now. "I missed you so much," she murmurs, looking first up at him, then over to where Sabrina and Charlie are sleeping. "All of you."

A tiny, pathetic sob finds its way past her lips then, and she buries her face against Nick's chest, her eyes closed tight against the tears that threaten to fall.

[awickedtime]

Nick waits until she's comfortable, until she's settled, shifting his legs so that she's almost curled into his lap. He drops a kiss into her hair, holding tight to her when she starts to cry.

"We missed you too, Rosie," he says. "Like a part of us."

[forthsofar]

What he says is true, and only makes her cry all the harder. She is a part of them, and they of her; something finely-tuned that had been thrown out of balance the last few days as she'd lain unconscious. And as she'd suffered, a world away from them. "I'm sorry," she mumbles at last. "I'm getting you damp." Sniffling again, she moves just enough to scrub at her eyes with her free hand before she settles against him once more.

"Have any of you heard about the others?" she asks, once her voice is a little steadier. "Where I was, I wasn't alone. There were other people from Darrow there. Some people Sabrina or Charlie would've known from the Home, along with a few others. If I'm awake, maybe...maybe they are too."

She thinks of Jamie first, of course, hope and fear mingling low in her gut. He had to be just as safe as she was now, and just as unharmed by all that had happened. Darrow was cruel, but she doesn't let herself wonder at what the limits of its cruelty might be in this instance.

[awickedtime]

"You can get me as damp as you like, babe," he says, gently, his own eyes stinging as he presses kisses against her hairline, her forehead. Once she settles, he combs his fingers through her hair.

"I haven't seen anyone, but I've heard they're all starting to wake up," he says. "Everyone's home. Everyone's safe."

[forthsofar]

It's the kind of soft, gentle reassurance she needs right now; enough to make her smile even though there's been precious little to smile about the last few days. She nods, breathing easier as he runs his fingers through her hair. "Good," she says, believing him without a second thought. Trusting him, in the way she has ever since the snow and the dark and the way he'd come to find her because she mattered to people who mattered to him.

"As long as we all made it back safe, that's...that's all I suppose we can ask for."

[awickedtime]

"Everybody safe, nobody hurt," he says, softly, reassuringly, letting that knowledge sink in as he plays with her hair. "Can I...can I ask where you've been or...if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to."

[signed_sabrina]

That Sabrina sleeps through Rosie's initial awakening can most likely be attributed to her utter exhaustion, paired with the safety of napping in Charlie's arms. They've stolen some much larger chair from the hospital, but she'd been fairly certain the hospital hadn't minded since it meant reducing its wandering, anxious teen problem. She'd finally given into the way her eyes had felt ready to swell shut when cradled securely against Charlie's chest; while Nick had also had his arms around her often enough, she thinks they're both hyper-aware of what's different when it comes to their mortals.

They're so much easier to lose, after all.

There's some movement and voices, and she goes from mostly asleep to mostly awake-- only to see that Rosie's state of consciousness has changed, and she gently extracts herself from Charlie's arms to pad over to the bed.

"Rosie?" Her eyes are still lidded in pink, her face pale, and her eyes huge and dark and worried. "You're awake."

[forthsofar]

The hospital, practiced in handling these odd bouts of what they coded as sleeping sickness for want of a diagnosis, had kept her hydrated while she lay there unconscious, but hydration is not food, and the longer Rosie spends awake, the more she realizes she's starving. It had been no effort at all to send Nick down to the hospital cafeteria for food--a sandwich, some crisps, anything--and as she waits for him to return, Rosie stays upright in bed, just watching Sabrina and Charlie as they doze together in a chair at her other side.

Seeing Sabrina stir, then get up entirely, Rosie gives her a small smile. The other girl looks near-devastated, the watery rims of her eyes and the pallor of her face making Rosie's heart lurch in her chest. "I'm awake," she echoes, her voice still a little husky, but steadier than it had been. With her free hand, she pulls aside the blanket, making room. "You can...come here, please?" There's something small and needy in the question, the tone of her voice sliding into one that's lost and terribly young. She sniffles once, blinking hard as her own eyes prickle with sudden tears.

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina's ability to control her expression might have grown quite a bit in the past year, but she's in no state to do any such thing right now, not when her Rosie is safe and sound and awake once more. Her lip quivers a bit, and her mouth bobbles, and then she nods, not wasting any time hurrying the rest of the way to the bed.

"I'm here, I'm here," she whispers, her chest so tight she can barely breathe, taking Rosie in her arms as carefully as she can. "Are you okay? Do you feel okay?" Much as she wants to hold on as tightly as she can, the need to be careful is even stronger.

[forthsofar]

It's Darrow's doing and not her own, Rosie knows, but to see Sabrina's face crumple just that little bit still sends a stab of guilt through her. She'd never meant to worry any of them this badly. Once Sabrina gets into the bed, she curls in against her, the careful enfolding circle of the other girl's arms protective in a way that she needs right now.

"I don't know," she says, the unsteady swells of her emotions making her more bluntly honest than she might have been otherwise. "I feel...I know I'm alright, the doctors said as much, but I still remember everything that happened, how horrible it was, how..." She sniffles again, cheek pressed to the soft fabric of Sabrina's shirt. "I was only asleep for two days, but it felt like weeks."

[signed_sabrina]

Having Rosie awake and in her arms soothes a multitude of wounds, and though Sabrina's initially almost ginger about gathering her up, when it's clear that she can hold Rosie as tightly as she'd like, she does so. She presses her mouth against Rosie's temple, to her hair, to her forehead, as her hands smooth up and down her arms and back.

"I heard that's part of it, another one of these things that happen here sometimes. They said you'd be safe, but safe isn't everything. Were you alone?"

It's utterly terrifying, to have her Rosie, her Rosie who she feels so much like protecting from small things like asshole jocks at school, suffering beyond her grasp, and Sabrina tells herself she's not about to cry, not with Rosie needing her. "I'm so sorry, Rosie, I'm so sorry it happened."

[forthsofar]

"I know you are," Rosie says, her voice only cracking a little. "It's not your fault, I know you know that, please know that, but I'm sorry it happened too." She's careful still, but there's something almost fierce in the way Sabrina runs her hands over her, kissing every part of her she can reach. She stays tucked tightly against the other girl's chest, sinking into the contact, letting Sabrina reassure them both that her Rosie was unscathed and whole. It helps, even as it makes her think of the last glimpse she'd had of Jamie there on the ship; the ruin of where his hand had been.

She was safe, she was whole, and all she could do was hope that he had woken up in the same state.

"Safe isn't everything," she agrees softly, unable to hold back the shudder that runs through her. "It wasn't...I might've been safe here, but not there. None of us were." Rosie moves just enough to look up at Sabrina, her own dark eyes watery and full of grief. "When that happens, when people...fall asleep like that, like I did, it seems they go someplace that's not Darrow. Usually somewhere that's somebody's home, wherever they were before they came here." She exhales shakily, then continues. "This time, it was the island Jamie lived on, before he arrived in Darrow."

[signed_sabrina]

"I know, I know," Sabrina murmurs, hands moving like she might be able to further gather Rosie too her, her own limbs wrapping around her. "I wanted to try something, anything, but we were too afraid of what would happen if the magics didn't mix." She thinks her heart might break a little when Rosie looks up with those wet, sorrowful eyes, and she kisses the delicate skin there, just above the apples of her cheeks.

She's quiet, then, trying to think it through. "Jamie's a good person, so I suppose I forgive him," she says, neither serious or joking completely. "What wasn't safe? There's something about him-- he seems like he's been through a lot. I suppose you got to go through it too, didn't you?"

[forthsofar]

Rosie makes a small, heartbroken sound at those two light kisses, and all the gentleness contained therein. She'd needed that time with Nick earlier, just the two of them together while Sabrina and Charlie slept on nearby, but she needs this too. She loves them all so much, and the loss of that for so long--she knows it had only been a matter of days here, but that doesn't matter to her, only the way it had felt at the time--had left a hollowness inside her that she's desperate to fill.

"Don't be cross with him, please," she says, even knowing that Sabrina doesn't entirely mean it. "It wasn't good, what happened to all of us, but for him..." She has to stop, swallowing hard against the sudden lurch of her stomach. "For him it was worse."

Where to start with it all feels almost too daunting for a moment. "There was someone on the Island. Peter, a...a boy Jamie was friends with for a time, the person who brought Jamie there in the first place." She doesn't say Peter Pan, doesn't call the island Neverland, not knowing whether it's anything more than a story to Sabrina. Until Jamie, she hadn't ever considered it might have been real. "He's sort of...in charge there, I guess. Thinks he can do whatever he wants, and what he wants is...is to be cruel." She thinks of Peter's sharp, feral little face, the tiny pearls of his teeth and the chill look in his eyes.

"We played along with it for a few days," she continues, pulling the story out of herself bit by bit. It's easier to do, now she's held safe in Sabrina's arms. "Made sure to stay out of Peter's way when we could. Be pleasant to him, when that wasn't possible. But eventually, he tried to go after Jamie, tried to hurt him, and we had to run." Rosie takes as deep and steadying a breath as possible, steeling herself for the next part of the story. "We escaped to a beach, fell in with...well, with a band of pirates, mad as it sounds. But Peter found us, and he and Jamie fought, and--"

Her voice frays and falters, and she turns her face into Sabrina's chest as though it could hide her from the rest of what she needs to say. "And he cut off Jamie's h-hand."

[teenagerenegade]

Mostly, he's been staying where Sabrina needs him to be. She's dozed off, tucked in alongside him in the chair but, when Rosie speaks, Charlie is still awake, cradling a cup of shitty hospital tea in his hands. Relief floods through him like water, his eyes stinging.

"Oh, thank God," he says. "I didn't know what I was going to do with the two of them if you didn't come back."

[forthsofar]

Though she's groggy and confused, her heart pounding a little as she takes in the rapid change in her surroundings, Rosie knows that voice. It's one she's missed more than she knows how to quantify, and one that she didn't think she'd ever hear again. For a moment, she just stares at him, taking in the hunch of his shoulders, the way his hands curl around that paper cup, how his eyes grow bright with unshed tears.

"I didn't..." she starts, the words coming out in a froggy croak. Rosie coughs, grimacing at the roughness she can feel in her throat. "I didn't want to stay away. Or leave in the first place."

[teenagerenegade]

"I know that, Rosie. We all knew that." A tear rolls down Charlie's cheek and he wipes it away with his sweater pulled over his hand. He takes another sip of his tea and then makes an unconscious face, putting it to one side. "That's so gross."

[forthsofar]

"Oh no, Charlie," she says, her heart breaking a little as she sees that tear spill down his face. "Please don't cry." She could handle it from Nick, and nearly expects it from Sabrina once she wakes, but somehow seeing her best friend brought to tears over her plight is almost too much for Rosie to take. Her own vision goes momentarily blurry, and if it hadn't been for the way he pulls that face at the taste of his drink Rosie thinks it all might have dissolved into the both of them weeping in each others' arms.

Instead, all she does is breathe out a half-strangled little laugh as he sets the cup aside. "You haven't had to put up with it for...for ages, have you?" she asks, trying hard to make the question sound light. "The tea. Or Nick and Sabrina being...how they are when there's a problem, really. You know what I mean." She smiles, and though it's faint it's also mostly steady. A small victory. "Where I was, where I went when I fell asleep, there were other people from Darrow there. Some of whom had experienced something like it before, and they said that it was only going to last a few days. No matter how long it felt while we were...away."

[teenagerenegade]

"It's only been a few days," Charlie reassures her. A few days had been more than enough. At least they'd had her physically here, as proof that she might return. He doesn't know what he'd have done if she'd disappeared without trace. "Long enough for all of us, though."

[forthsofar]

"More than long enough," she agrees quietly. She looks a little past him, at the curve of Sabrina's body and the pale curls of her hair as she dozes there next to Charlie. She looks at peace, or at least not as frantic as it sounds like she'd been over the last two days, and Rosie's glad she won't have cause to feel it again. At least not for this particular situation.

"I wouldn't have wanted any of you to go through it," she says. "It was...do you remember Jamie, from the Home? We all woke up in the place he came from. Neverland, if you can believe it, but don't tell him it's only a story to the rest of us, it...I don't think it'd be polite."

[teenagerenegade]

Charlie nods.

"Neverland? Like...Peter Pan Neverland? Lost boys and all that?" Charlie's eyes widen. "That's...wow."

[forthsofar]

"Yes, exactly that," she says, a chill going down her back when Charlie speaks Peter's name. She'll never look at that story the same way again, knowing what she does now. "It sounds mad, but maybe no more so than anything else that happens here." Look at what the city had just done, after all, bringing her and so many others to a land nearly all of them had assumed to be fictional.

She thinks again about Anterwold, just for a moment. Wondering, before she pushes it all aside again, fearing another headache if she contemplates it too much.

"In the story, it all seemed so much nicer, a place for adventures with fairies and mermaids and all that, but the...the reality of it, since it's apparently very real, isn't anything like that at all. Peter isn't anything like it. He's..." Another, stronger shiver runs through her, and her stomach lurches unpleasantly before settling again. "He cut off Jamie's hand."