Take Me Back To Paddington (SERIES)

Chapter 48 - The Angel's Grace

I gasped for air as my eyes shot opened, feeling the cold breath I inhaled through my throat.

"Lisa!" I heard Nick's voice called for me while his hands were grasping my shoulders, tightly. "Ohh thank God!"

I saw his worried face, breathing in almost the same pace as me.

"Nick!" I tried to scream, fingers clenching his shirt but only air came out from my mouth.

"No, breathe first," He sneaked his arm under my body and lifted me to his lap that was secured with the soft pillow. "Easy, easy"

He breathed through his mouth, reminding me the breathing technique we both knew that would always work to stay collected. My eyes fixed on Baxter as I imitated him, blinking the tears in them and I felt his fingers on my face shortly after.

"You are fine, Lisa. Everything is fine"

I was still confused with what was happening; why am I here? I was in hell, in the well. I remembered correctly that I died and the hellfire had eaten my skin. But even though those thoughts and confusion already infected my mind at the moment, I could still notice Nick's subtle panic.

He was mumbling about I was being fine. And from that I knew he didn't tell me I was fine so I would be calm. Nick was actually telling himself that I was all right so he wouldn't worry about me anymore.

Well, I wouldn't blame him for that. He just killed someone; a fellow police officer to be exact, and there was no way I could tell how scared and anxious he had been when he already did everything he could, but I still didn't breathe the way I supposed to. I had no idea how long he had been struggling to retrieve me back. I wasn't sure how many counts of CPR he conducted on me earlier. So he had all the rights to be panic, to be in fear, to feel relieved afterwards.

Nick earned his own time to make himself feel better and what he had done just for the sake of my plan made me so proud of him. I was so, so proud of him.

"There you go," He whispered as his thumb was brushing my cheek. "You will be fine"

"Nick?" I called for him under my breath. "I did it" Doubting if he could hear me with that kind of low voice, I continued to talk anyway. "I was in hell and- I killed Asmodeus"

He chuckled softly, eyes squeezed in when a sweet smile stretched his mouth. "You did?"

"Yeah but I died" I elaborated, planning to tell him about the confusion my brain was covered with at the moment. "I died in there but I asked to be taken back here. I asked for forgiveness," I paused. "...from God"

Baxter just looked at me in the same way I did to him, noticing the tears in his eyes that had became visible and how he struggled to hide them from me by his smile.

So I spoke again when he didn't give any response to my sentence earlier. "Do you think He forgave me?"

"He is The Most Merciful, Lisa" He reminded me again about what Chae made me learn about God. He repeated what I confessed in the well back in hell. "He loves us all"

His smile was different. Even the way he spoke; the tone and the voice, all were different from the Nick's I learned to know in the universe I travelled to. He sounded a lot like my best friend, the one and only Nick Baxter who I loved so much.

But that wasn't the only thing I began to question in my mind. The condition of my own body came right after that. It was because I didn't feel any other physical pain except for the soreness around my neck, which I knew was due to the strangling. I couldn't feel the pain I should be having in or on my chest, or at least a fractured rib if heavy chest compression was done to retrieve me back from death.