After the End: Book 4

41. Detouring

A/N: I would have finished editing this hours earlier, but then Harry's House came out... Little Freak to Matilda? Sobbing.

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Harrys POV

I don't mind hospitals as much as I should. I find them quiet most of the time. I like healthcare workers because there's something really pure to me about the decision to make a career out of making sure other people are okay. Maybe it's just because of my respect for Jay, but I've never held any hate for someone that worked at a hospital. At least not while sober.

I couldn't remember if I'd ever been to Jays hospital in Doncaster. I was pretty sure I hadn't. It didn't seem familiar, but I forgot things all the time. The girls seemed familiar there, so I assumed they were at least comfortable. They used to tell me they met their mum at work after school some days. It must have been there.

After informing us all that we were actually all most likely responsible for breaking Louis brain wide open, we filed behind her down the nearest hallway that she'd come from. Random nurses and people in white coats stopped to wave pleasantly at the girls, and they offered halfhearted smiles that told me they knew them. We got to the end of the hallway, and Lottie pushed a curtain back to reveal a very tired, but otherwise alert vision of Louis.

They hadn't made him change into a hospital gown, or they'd already let him have his clothes back after scanning his brain for the epilepsy, or brain tumors, or other horrible things that didn't exist. He was in the same jeans he'd left in and his old faded tshirt. His hair was still a ruffled mess but he wasn't near as pale anymore. He had a hospital bracelet on one wrist and an IV trailed into the crook of his opposing elbow. I was sure he was probably supposed to be lounged in the bed, but he was actually standing, leaning his hips back against the hospitals bed frame and looking intently at something on his phone. When we walked in, he stuffed it in his pocket and forced a very unconvincing smile in our direction.

"I'm alive," he said cheekily.

He definitely sounded more alert than before. When he'd left, although walking and softly complaining that he was fine, he had looked very dazed and very confused. He didn't look quite so out of it, but as I took a step further into the room, I saw something else. I looked at his tired blue eyes and saw just the slightest enlargement of his pupils. That didn't match up quite right with the bright hospital light. I wondered what they'd given him. I was overly curious actually.

"Get back in bed," Lottie commanded pointedly.

She crossed into the room and sat in one of the few available chairs. I knew we must have been far beyond the normally allowed number of visitors, but I thought maybe the hospital staff knew better than to start telling the Tomlinson children no. They'd worked with Jay. They had to know that wasn't going to go well for them.

Louis rolled his eyes and stepped back to sit on the bed behind him. He didn't even bother swinging his legs over.

He looked fine. Maybe a little floaty from whatever they gave him, but otherwise he looked completely unscathed. I couldn't imagine how less than a few hours prior, he'd been collapsing right in front of me. Did he even know it was me that had caught him? According to Lottie, he probably didn't even remember our discussion in the bathroom, although to call it a discussion was a stretch anyways.

"Are... are you okay?"

The timid voice belonged to Daisy. I'd totally forgotten about the others walking in behind me, but I glanced back and saw Daisy standing stiffly in the doorway. Unlike Phoebe to my left, and Naomi holding Oliver to my right, she'd hovered back. I didn't blame her. I had very mixed feelings about her at the moment, and it wasn't entirely her fault, but that didn't make me any less stupidly defensive of the guy sitting in a hospital bed. Especially because we could presume he was there as a result of all of us being so fucking mean to him.