2020-03-28 - All the Stars are Blood

Saturday morning, Lilith doesn't fully dress up for work, but she takes the time to loose curl some of her hair, then throws it up into a darling ponytail. Under the bathroom lights, the dark strands shine with the gloss of health and beauty. She's wearing her underwear because she always does hair and makeup before dressing, and those delicates are always a matching set, white satin and sheer lace mesh for today. At some point, Byron sees her prior to leaving for the day's business engagements. When he leaves, she's still leaned forward over the bathroom vanity, meticulously dolling her wide blue eyes up to riveting, standout levels.

He's seen this enough times to know she gets obsessive about making sure the sultry sweep of eyeliner is even and straight, he knows she takes even longer to ensure all of her eyelashes are flared, darkened and separated, made to bat with keen feminine effectiveness. The man also knows she pops her mouth open a little for focus when she spends time doing this (after putting on lip balm) and it's kind of cute.

It's still Saturday, but Lilith's pretty lashes are caked and doused with blood. They stick together, it's making it hard to keep her eyes open, fresh blood is still trickling from her head while slow clotting given the abundance of blood vessels. There's tears too, salty streaks of dark, mascara-leaking misery, running and rolling garish trails down the rest of the drying blood on her face. Her hair has fallen down, the elastic band broke, the strands aren't glossy anymore, they're tangled and soaked and matted with so much drying blood in places.

Pain is exploding in her head and she can't remember why, but she knows it feels like a thousand violently dying stars, expanding, pulsing, exploding, imploding. Though her eyes are trying to stay open, she can only really see red comet trails and white hot supernovas, and there's firework displays behind her lids each time she woozily blinks in slow motion. Lilith doesn't know a lot because she can't think straight right now, but she has the survival instinct to fight for consciousness until she knows for sure she's safe.

Eventually, she gives up the efforts to keep her eyes open and tries to hum instead, lying on the back room office floor of the pawn with a marred cheek smashed to the floor. She wants to sing the words, but she can't, the words feel difficult. When she tries, they only partially come out in little whispered bursts here and there, but there's no one here to try and make sense of what the melody and lyrics even are. The door is locked, there's stacks of very good counterfeit (and real) cash and stolen jewelry out on the desk in very illegal abundance,

Lilith is trying to sing the song she played on her phone before everything went wrong.

bright are the stars that shine
dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
will never die

... and I love her...

When Byron's eyes refocus, he finds himself standing out in the rain right beside his car. The coffee that he had earlier was long gone and while the coveralls may have protected his suit from major damage, claw marks had slashed through the fabric to dig deep into his midsection and one of his arms. So much for protecting the suit. Blood has already seeped through the expensive fabric. The gloomy rain is enough to sober him, as does the cold chill in the air. He's fully awake and aware almost immediately and it doesn't take long for him to remember what just went down. The last he remembered, he was carrying Lilith in his arms and while his bicep still hurt like all hell, the weight of her lithe form was gone.

His Rolls Royce Wraith races through the slick Gray Harbor streets on his way to Elm. He, himself, was still injured by the ordeal and Lilith was in no condition to walk. In fact, she was unconscious for a time. He's not one hundred percent sure if he would find her at the pawn shop, but that's where he heads to first. Coming to a quick stop just outside of the building, he immediately pulls out his key to the place to let himself in.

"Lilith!" His voice can be heard coming from the shop front. Uncertain as to where she was exactly before she was dragged into the Dream, he checks behind the store counter and looks through each aisle that he passes on his way towards the back. "Lilith!" He calls again. He's slightly damp, the warm air in the vehicle doing enough to try and dry him off in the short ride over. He tries the office door. Locked. It's a faint sound, but he can hear the soft humming coming from within which confirms to him that Lilith was here.

Switching keys, he fumbles for a moment, before finally getting that back room open and that's when he's confronted by the sight of her lying prone on the office floor. Hurriedly, he makes his way over to drop down into a kneel beside her, one arm extended to try and lift he back and head. "Hey, Lil. I'm here with you. I'm going to carry you upstairs, alright?" He's not sure if she can hear him, but if she's strong enough to hum, she might be semi-conscious. He remembers she was babbling at him before they were Returned. With his other arm reaching for her legs, he tries to gently collect her.

It takes a second for Lilith to realize Byron is actually there. Initially, she eyes him through half-lidding without quite hearing his entry, then makes a soft sigh of noise when something a little akin to a smile takes her face, soft and loving under the garish presentation. She's conscious enough to murmur at him, but it's unnervingly clear she isn't sure entirely what's going on. She never even saw the Vivisectionist in all the chaos, she was trying to get up to stand and then lightning cracked, blood exploded from her head into her eyes and she dropped like a fly. Head trauma complicates that confusion, it seems because she says two different things.

"Beautiful. Stay with me. Stay til he comes."

But Byron is right there, she must think she's not really seeing him so much as an angel or phantom image of him that she's conjured for comfort. His voice sinks in slowly, though, and as she's moved, her head pain jolts her into a moment of reality, spurring the second murmur before she goes silent. He's not meaning to cause her pain, of course, but it's hard to keep her head steady once he's needing to steady her at the back with bridal lift. It falls in against his body woozily and heavily to one side when he starts to walk her for transport, stealing her breath and consciousness for a moment of blackout relief during re-situation. She can have all the will in the world to stay awake, but she's essentially a glass cannon-- her body isn't made for extreme pain and damages, so much.

"He's here now. I smell him."

Byron is careful in the way he holds Lilith, but there's only so much that he can do to alleviate her pain. The shift of him gathering her and then lifting her up in his arms is movement enough to aggravate some of her injuries. Looking grave in the face as he carries her towards the door and up the stairway, when he notices that smile on her lips, he tries to give her one in return. "Hey, Beautiful." This smile is marred by the furrowing of his brow. For all he knows, she's slightly delusional right now and is doing more of that babblespeak, so he doesn't question anything that she says. He proceeds onward

This is where he has to fish out those keys again to unlock her loft door, performing this balancing act at the top of the stairs as he tries to keep Lilith as steady as possible. "I've got you." Byron keeps talking in the hopes that it helps to coax her out of her disorientation. With the door now open, he doesn't care to shut it closed and looks between the bed and the bathroom. He's not sure how badly she's hurt. The bathroom it is. At least in there, he'll be able to clean her up while checking on her injuries.

It's a tiny bathroom, so there's not much space for them to move around. Crouching down before the tub with Lilith partially resting on one knee, he leans forward to turn on the water, making sure that it's a warm temperature. From there, he starts to undress her as the tub fills. As each garment slips from her body, his eyes roam her flesh, assessing her state. The heat from the tub helps to warm up the chilly air.

Lilith is dead weight as Byron gets her in through the door with some juggling, still lost to woozy blessed blackness behind the eyes, no more fireworks and pain. Of course, that makes her suck a bit to juggle, but it could have been worse with her consciously in pain so it's fine. The noise of the water and lower down for garment removal and survey starts to rouse her, though, along with her own stubborn will to stay awake. This time, when her eyes open, she seems to actually see him, though her focus is hazy and wandering with constant interruption of slow blood-matted blinks, "... hi, baby."

It's cute and all, she even gives Byron a dizzy kind of smile, but that... also makes her current bodily state a little more ugh with contrast to such sweetness in a moment of partial clarity. Her chest and stomach and ribs and collarbone have blackening bruising that looks nasty as a collective, but probably isn't something that's actually threatening to the bones underneath. Once he has her stripped for the tub, though, Byron also catches eyes on the very extent of blood over her scalp, through her hair, and down her face. It's done fully streaming at this point, but places still seem to be oozing with slow leak that makes it hard to tell exactly where the blood is coming from.

What happened to Lilith's head wasn't blunt force trauma like the beating on her fair flesh. It's very likely that much blood isn't coming from just one place.

Byron's plan was to submerge Lilith into the tub and rinse or wipe all of the blood off from her, but seeing the blood in her hair hints to him that she may have open wounds on her scalp and that was worrisome. With a careful hand, the other still propping her up, he pushes some of her hair aside, trying to get a better look at her head in the case that she had some deep wounds. He really should take her to the hospital, because he knows that he can't do anything for her here.

"Damnit, Lilith. What did that bitch do to you?"

What was he even doing here in the bathroom? She should have been packed up in his car on their way to Addington Memorial by now. Who cares if there's no good explanation for what happened to her, this kind of thing happened all the time here. No, what he really needed to do was get someone to help her. August.

Reaching into his pocket for his phone while still holding her in his arm with one hand, he dials up the botanist, waiting for the guy to pick up. "Pick up. Pick up." With each passing second, his impatience continued to grow. He wasn't sure how deeply her head was punctured and how damage to her brain that it could have caused. He'd suffered from brain damage at least once before.

Spiritualists are nasty, especially the ones that have a more creative, enthusiastic hand for damage with power to fuel it. The Vivisectionist (name applicable) was unsurprisingly just that. This kind of flayed into damage (in multiple) looks like the kind of violence that Lilith herself doles out on other humans and creatures. Luckily, Byron's not seeing any bone, but there's so much blood, it's really hard to tell. And just because he's not seeing bone doesn't mean her actual skull isn't fractured underneath in the same gash pattern. It's a bit like the powers exerted either tried to implode or explode her head into pieces, not with physical force, but with ripping and tearing chaotic violence on the matter that makes the body.

Somehow, her body resisted it enough to live. But to the man holding her, it's just... so much fucking blood clotting and gumming and oozing, dark and ominous. Heads do tend to bleed a lot on principle, so with that factored in to up the ante where blood flow is concerned, it will be hard to really see the detailed chaos of those split open gashes. Precaution and immediacy is probably a good instinct for the man to jump to. With her resting against him, stripped down now to the noise of running water, the tilt of her head at woozy rest gives him a better view of what her dark hair was partially hiding.

Lilith can't keep her head up. She can't keep her eyes open anymore again either, but she still seems conscious, at least to some degrees where she's still trying to talk, confusion evident with some difficulty in working out certain words, "... dog. Dogs?" She's confused the word 'bitch' here, clearly, because she didn't even see what was coming. She's blaming dogs, and to be fair, she did get clubbed, she has the bruises to show for it. So she's maybe remembering enough, it just doesn't sound that way given the way the woman is just piecemeal saying words, "It's hard. Stars are red when I see them. Tell me. Tell me when. And then I'll sleep."

Seeing the extent of how much Lilith was bleeding or had bled, Byron internally goes into a panic, his body going completely cold. He couldn't let her stay here. He takes a few more movements to shift at her hair, especially at the sections along her forehead where it's easier to move her locks away.

Okay, stay calm He tells himself and despite the chill of dread, the water filling the tub continued to heat the room up. He knew he had to act fast. Carefully, he sets her down to fully rest against the floor as he rises to lean forward and shut the water off before letting the draining process start. That's when he hears her, forcing him to look back. There's conflict in him on whether to allow her to drift off to sleep or to keep her awake. For concussions you want the latter, so that's what he'll do. "Not now, hon. There's no sleeping now."

Moving fast, he's already on his way out into the main room to retrieve some clothing for her, "I'll be right back okay, you just keep humming. Or talking. I'll be here to listen to you." He's not gone for long, however, grabbing one of her robes from her closet, something simple to wrap her up in. She was still covered in blood, but there was very little he could do now. Who knows how much time he had and for all he knew, she was still in some kind of shock.

Kneeling down next to her, he tries to sit up her again, working to slip her arms into the loose sleeves of the plush robe. "Maybe I should call for an ambulance..." He murmurs, his hand already reaching for his phone again once the first arm is sleeved.

Normally, the word 'ambulance' even in murmured passing might trigger Lilith because for as much as she hates hospital stays, she EXTRA hates the ambulance. She's been dosed for giving them a hard time before (maybe twice, in fact). But when Byron comes back to dress the woman where she's slumped, naked and humming on the floor, she doesn't really hear or register it for what it is. Gray Harbor isn't a big town, it might be quicker to just run her down and drive her straight there given the ambulance would have to come, then depart to get her to Emergency, but they do have sirens and maybe they can stabilize her or something on the way, so who knows.

He does know, at least, that Lilith's head isn't spilling blood down her face and that she's self-clotting more or less by this point. And Byron also knows he got her up the stairs, her neck at least doesn't seem to be an issue with her head injury, it's just the woozy fight to stay awake and pain that has it looking too heavy to keep held up with eyes open. The woman isn't humming the same song this time. It's hard to catch onto at first because she's doing it so drawn out and slow with shallow pushes of air in her throat to make wakeful noise, but while she tries to help get her arms into the robe, he might catch on.

It's this stabilization that Byron is hoping for. Trying to dress someone and making a phone call is hard work, so at some point, he sets his phone down to finish slipping her second arm through one of the sleeves before tugging the sash around her tight and making a little bow with it. His thoughts to go back to his phone, reaching for it again just as he's carefully lifting her up to stand. Maybe it was better that he dropped her off there himself and possibly give Addington Memorial a call so that they can prepare for their arrival.

With this plan in mind, he stashes his phone back into his pocket, giving full use of both of his hands to keep Lilith steady. He could carry her, but then she might drift off to sleep, so forcing her to walk would be the best thing right now. "We're going down to my car and I'm taking you to the hospital, alright. You just keep humming." Whether she struggles against him or not, he will start to walk her towards the door and down the stairs. Byron's own clothes remain bloodied and torn which is something that the hospital staff are probably already familiar with even if he doesn't stay as a patient.

Byron might as well be dragging Lilith in actual hold against him down the stairs because looking down and navigating downward steps with balance is some shit she's just not dealing well with at the moment. However, walking through the actual loft apartment and through the shop, she does at least stay on her own feet with a tight hold to keep her from swaying and pointed the right directions. Her breath is starting to run out, though, it probably hurts to breathe too given her torso clubbing from the guard dogs, and she's also kind of... gotten to the end of the song.

Yes, she could start over, but that'd be the smart and logical thing to do and she's suddenly trying not to throw up on the sly with all the walking wobble of motion throwing her impaired sense of equilibrium off kilter. Instead, once they're in the car on the way... she literally starts to say the abc's in Spanish with drawn out psuedorhythm, despite a brief mumbled complaint about air being stupid and hard. Then she does them in French. Then she counts to five in Japanese. Just five. She trails into sleepy silence after that, lashes rising and falling heavily as Byron is stared at as her new stay-awake tactic. He might not know this, but...

"You have... nice ears."

That's good news, right? Admittedly, she's starting to lose her consciousness battle, but he can tell she's fighting logically, tooth and nail, not just obediently, shooting off alphabets like that. And it won't be long til she's in medical capable hands.

Once inside the car, he pulls out of the driveway and careens down one of the side streets to reach Bayside Road, from there he'll head Downtown. Byron keeps watch of Lilith as he drives, turning to make sure that she's still awake and breathing before setting his gaze back on the road. Because he hadn't bundled her up in a coat, he turns on the heater to keep the temperature comfortable. It wasn't winter, but it was still chilly.

Dark eyes lift to view the center mirror as she starts to sing the alphabet in various languages. Some sound simple enough, like the alphabet in Spanish. Then French, since he'd taken that class in high school. Japanese, however, he had never taken and though he may have heard the language spoken here and there, especially in the business world, the words spoken are quickly translated in his mind. Which he might think is odd, but it's such a minor thing. Maybe he'd picked it up somewhere.

At one of the redlights, he impatiently waits by pulling out his phone and dialing up the hospital. "Hello? My girlfriend's been attacked." Again... "And I'm on my way to the hospital now. She has some bad bruising on her body, but my main concern is her head wound. There's blood all over. Byron Thorne. Yes." Lilith then compliments his ears and he turns to her flashing her a confused smile. "Yes. We were already on the way, so we didn't call an ambulance. Yes. Maybe in seven minutes? We're near Spruce right now. Yes. Thank you."

In fact, they had just passed the Triple Towers of the Bayside Apartments. "Everything's going to be fine." He's telling himself as much as he's letting Lilith know. "They'll take care of you."

"Byron..." Lilith starts after some quiet staring, listening to the phone call while she's trying to stay awake and be cognitively functional through the haze of pain in her head and wooziness. The woman's hand reaches over toward his arm to fall with draping hold, fingers curling in momentary pulsing squeeze, "Listen. On Thanksgiving..." Why the hell is she talking about Thanksgiving right now? It doesn't matter, at least she's talking and from the way she's really trying to impart this, it sounds like it's mildly important for some reason, "I made... recorded something."

Considering what kind of videos she's made him in the past, or the videos they've made together, that MIGHT be a disturbing starter while she's still out of context.

But at least he knows it's not her recording his criminal activities, nor is she trying to tell him she's done adult films or anything like that with what she says next, "For you, though. It's for you. But it's hidden away for just in case. You know?" He probably doesn't know at all what she means by that! Technically, it makes sense to her because she knows why she made it, what it is, where it is, and why he hasn't seen it, she also probably knows why she's telling him about it. But unfortunately, her mental catalog is giving him no sense of context, "I want to sleep. I love you. Tell me not to sleep again. Tell me in your... work voice." The fuck is a work voice? She must mean she wants him to be decisive and firm with her or something of the ilk, or convincing or... that's just a weird way to put it, but it kind of makes sense.

She's struggling, the body can only really be pushed so long when it wants to shut down with injury trauma. But it's not long before they're at the hospital pull in for Emergency where there's staff with gurney and wheelchair waiting as options given the call ahead of warning.

One of those Yes's, probably the one following his name was the nurse asking if the patient was Lilith Winslow, being so used to this couple's bullshit..er penchant to getting injured. Hearing his own name now uttered from Lilith's lips, he turns automatically as if this were a perfectly normal day and she was about to tell her something just as perfectly normal. "Thanksgiving?" He asks with a quirk of his brow, dark eyes looking her before returning back to the road. "What did you record?"

There is no moment during all of this that he'll assume that Lilith had found out things that he keeps hidden from her and everyone else, so his mind automatically goes to something sexy or silly. "Where is it hidden, Lily?" He once more turns to face her, just as she talks about her work voice, something which makes him blink. "Lil? Where is this recording" He's not 100% certain that a recording exists. She might just be babbling again, so he won't push it. However, when she requests that he try to keep her from sleeping in that 'work voice', well, his last inquiry was spoken partially in a firm tone and though he might not fully understand the request, he makes sure to quickly say, "Lilith." He says her name louder now, in case she's already drifting off, "Lilith, I need you to stay awake right now. We're almost there. Once you're checked out, then you can go to sleep. Not anytime before that."

They really were almost there, pulling up into the street leading to downtown and then into the driveway leading up to the ER. Just as he'd hoped, several doctors and nurses are already waiting with a patient bed.

"On my burner phone..." Lilith apparently has a secret burner phone, but given she actually works for Felix as much as herself, technically, it's maybe not that surprising. It's not the location of the recording quite, but that IS where it has been recorded and hidden away... somewhere. It's not as helpful as Byron might have hoped for, but it's the kind of answer that lets him know she's really talking about things that exist. She starts to drift off while reciting more numbers in Japanese, five numbers again, but this time they're not in order and Byron knows that (even if he doesn't know how he knows that). Then she says them again, in the same jumbled order with a drifting whisper as she starts to nod out unwillingly, which maybe indicates she knows what she's saying, not just jumbling stuff due to brain trauma.

Three Five Two One Four

His snap to tone of voice with firm telling of Lilith exactly when she gets to sleep makes her head start to lift again, and though she makes an miserable little groan at him, it's better than her drifting off, so it must have worked in a sense. But then neither of them have to try anymore, they're there and Lilith is transferred into hospital care, leaving Byron to nerves and questions from hospital staff that she can't quite answer herself. They ARE questioning the hell out of her and talking to her while they get her situated and pushed back for immediate trauma care, CATscans, Xrays, and whatever else is required because apparently, the nature of the injury has them a bit on edge. The nurse is constantly questioning her with things like how old she is, how much does she weigh, when is her birthday, does she know where she is...?

The last thing Byron really hears Lilith say until he's allowed to see her again in a patient room is...

"... ohmyfuckinggodstopaskingmethings."

Yep. Hospital Lilith. She knows where she is.

Her burner phone? Byron is looking at Lilith again, quietly pondering where she might keep such a thing. His place or hers? Probably hers. It's only a fleeting thought, though, and something which brings him a touch of amusement despite her going back to spouting out numbers in a foreign tongue again. He may understand the words spoken, but he doesn't know enough to recite them himself.

When he pulls up to the hospital entrance, the medical team jump into action and Byron goes to park his car before trailing behind them. There's nothing he can do now but wait and fill out paperwork. He doesn't leave immediately and instead he spends time either sitting in one of the waiting rooms or pacing about between the chair and the hallway which she was carted off to. At some point one of the nurses gives him an update before telling him which hospital room she will be staying in.

With that in mind, he considers returning home, back to his place to collect some of her clothes and freshen up. He might also need a strong cup of coffee to go with the worry. Like always, some of the nurses harass him about the blood on his shirt, demanding that he sits down to get his injuries cleaned and tended to. There's very little that he can do then, while he's here. He does require stitches for both his abdomen and his arm.

This always tends to happen when he drops Lilith off here. Once that is done, he'll finally depart. They always say not to get your stitches wet and they'd cleaned up all of the blood, at the very least. But he was in need of a bath, if not a shower. He had some time before Lilith would be in recovery, so bathes himself, changes into a fresh set of clothes-- a black turtle neck and a pair of jeans, and packs up a few things of Lilith's. He even makes sure to change the cat's water bowl and to feed him before he returns back to the hospital.

It's strange, though, he can't stop thinking about this mention of a burner phone and a recording. He didn't have time to look around. Maybe he'll do so later, if he even remembers anything about it.

It takes a while, the hospital staff is being particularly thorough, and at some point when the nurse comes out, she looks a touch bothered while trying to explain the extent and status of Lilith's injuries and what the doctors are currently doing before rooming her. There's six lacerations that have been closed, but only one of them was particularly dangerously situated and split to the bone. That one required suturing instead of tissue repair glue to keep the wounds from breaking open again to bleed. Then she explains that there's three fractures separate on the woman's actual skull in different locations. They don't match the outside blood trauma and there's no signs of blunt force on her scalp above the fracture lines to account for them, which appears to have thrown the medical team.

Luckily, she doesn't question Byron about that because Gray Harbor things, probably. She explains that Lilith is concussed and has some cerebral edema which is causing pressure in her cranium. For now, there's no need for surgery, they're waiting for her body to leech the fluid itself with rest and medication. Also they're taking forever, so that definitely gives Byron plenty of time to pace around and worry with, get treated, go tend to things outside of the hospital, then come back and STILL beat Lilith into the assigned room. But within moments of his return and question about where she is, she gets wheeled into the room, asleep.

Lilith has been cleaned up considerably. With her eyes closed, breathing regulated, and body limp with deep anesthetic slumber, it's not too different from the soft and vulnerable, feminine delicacy that crops up when all that vivacious sass, wit, temper, and quick thinking is shut away by sleep. He knows she turns on when she opens those expressive blue eyes and is anything but delicate and vulnerable, but right now, they're not opening. The length of her hair has been left down and tended by a nurse with surgical cleanser of some kind, but there's a stark white bandage wrapped around her head much like a very covering bandana or winter cap.

Lilith finally got her hard won sleep.

Before he heads out the door, he tries to dial August up again. Maybe he's on another call because all three of them had just gone through the same shit. He has hopes that the medical team would be able be able to 'fix' her, but with what he's been told regarding her injuries, he's not sure if there will be any amount of brain damage or other complications like it. Otherwise, he wouldn't be trying to desperately to reach out for another healer.

Grabbing his laptop in the case that he may need to do work at the hospital, Byron is ready to head out the door with the cat watching him from its perch atop the couch. From the Wraith, he dials up August again. Still nothing.

By the time he returns to the hospital, he has a large cup of coffee in hand and everything he needs to set up some work space in Lilith's recovery room. This whole time, he replays the words that the nurses had told him over and over in his mind regarding Lilith's condition. His impatience is getting the better of him and perhaps he should have driven out to Roen's shop or maybe his lodge to pick him up, but he wanted to be there at the hospital before Lilith woke up.

He's quiet with his entrance, however, and after a much needed sip of coffee, he sets the cup down to crouch besides Lilith's bed. A hand reaches out to brush some of her hair out of her face while attentive eyes study her peaceful features.

Lilith is very deeply asleep with medications coursing her body in variety, and she's been cleared to sleep while under observation. That means that a nurse will be coming to rouse her to check how responsive she is on a time schedule rotation. But they're letting her mild sedation wear off before that begins, Byron has plenty of time to observe her in that state of slumber so deep, there's no movement. It's a very Sleeping Beauty moment, her lying so still and undisturbed, save for the setting and bandaging. Actually, those two visual factors might ruin that imagery, in fairness. It's a probably a little more... like when Snow White was put to sleep by a witch.

The point is, there's no little twitches or flutters of eyelashes. There's none of that thing she does with her foot, that unconscious, incessant flex of rub back and forth against his leg or the sheets. Honestly, she rarely sleeps laid out on her back, generally she's flopped on her side in drape over him or a pillow... or flat on her stomach with her cheek squashed. Sometimes she wakes up perpendicular to him, laid out across the bed with her head on his stomach, and the covers are always twisted up when housekeeping makes the bed. He wakes up first and she rolls around a lot more without the man tucked in with her. Also she'll make the best 'mmhmnnm' noise to literally any question you ask her while she's asleep, which was something the boys in her early life learned young and cracked up about. You have to make sure she's fully awake before you ask her a serious question because otherwise, it won't count.

It's unclear if she'll rouse to any of Byron's words or touch like this, though, assuming he was even inclined to try at some point. Granted, the nurse will pop in to make sure she's able to wake up on her own with rousing, but if the man wanted to do it himself in his own way, and it happens to be around the time the nurse is due to try, it's fair enough, isn't it? She can always go back to sleep after she's observed awake. Then again, she's prime with all this silence and stillness for Byron to just observe too, while reflecting.

Not wanting to wake her if the nurses are allowing this moment of peace, Byron continues his vigilant watch, lingering this close in quiet study of her face, her body. All was quiet and still. So he watches her breathe, the lift and fall of her chest beneath the blanket she was tucked into. The hand at her cheek trails gently along her arm before he takes hold of her own hand, giving it a light squeeze. He remains in this position for a few minutes, all the while his coffee was cooling.

At some point, he pulls away, straightening to stand as he takes a few steps back in the darkened room. It was night and the moonlight was shining through the window. The medical staff were taking good care of her, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that she needed a real healer. He needs to try August again. Breathing in a deep breath, he shuts his weary eyes as his hand slips into his pocket for his phone.

Then he was gone.