salute ➳ 〚h.s.〛 〚a.u.〛

chapter 26 - different dwellings and fiery flats

Piper jolted awake, gasping for breath, and had a panicked moment where she couldn't remember where she was. She looked wildly around her, her eyes taking in the hospital bed, all the equipment around her, the rows of beds lined up across the way. She would have thought she was back in the dental surgery and all of that shit with Clive and the tracker had been a dream but a rustling down by her leg caught her attention. Harry's head was resting on the end of the bed, cradled in his arms, and he was muttering in his sleep with his brows drawn together.

It was instinctive for her to slide her fingers into the familiar curls, just for a sense of familiarity and comfort. As her fingertips massaged his scalp, Harry's eyes fluttered until they finally cracked open. He smacked his lips as he woke up properly and then his eyes drifted up to her face. He smiled when he saw she was awake.

"Hi petal," he said groggily, his voice a rough whisper. He pushed himself up on his arms, taking a deep breath that quickly transformed into a yawn, stretching his mouth open. He rubbed his eye at the same time and Piper couldn't help but smile at the image of him looking like a toddler waking from his nap.

She giggled, sliding her hand from his hair and reaching for the hand resting against the bed instead. She clutched it tightly. "Hi Harry."

The words came out all slurred and warbled because her mouth was still frozen for the most part. Harry winced sympathetically. "Try not to talk yet," he said gently as he stretched across her bed to press the red call button on the other side. "Let's just wait and see what the doctor has to say."

"Can —"

"Piper, don't."

She fixed him with a hard stare, letting him know how little she appreciated being interrupted. "Can you tell me what happened?" she asked in her slurred voice. "Last night? I can't quite remember."

Harry frowned at that, his hand drifting up to finger the bandage over her forehead. "The doctor said you might forget some things. You have a concussion, it seems." Piper sat back against her pillows with a huff, pouting, and it made a sneaky little smile slip onto Harry's face. "You'll be fine. A couple days and that big brain of yours will be back to normal, making all of us look like idiots and working on saving the world."

She tried not to react, not to give Harry the satisfaction of laughing at his dumb joke, but a stupid grin broke across her face as her cheeks flushed. One of the things she'd always loved about her relationship with Harry was that her smarts were just as attractive in his eyes as her looks, maybe even more.

"My teeth?"

"Right, the important bit," Harry corrected sheepishly. "Those are going to be fine too."

He explained what had taken place the night before which she could only vaguely remember because of the sedatives she had been given and the slight memory loss she'd been experiencing. Just to be safe, they'd opened her stitches, irrigated the surgery site once more, and then stitched her back up. The implants for her new teeth had been successfully anchored into her jaw and now she just had to let them heal before she could go through with the second stage that would give her back her molars. The doctors predicted she'd be in pain for a bit but that it should be gone by midweek.

"You stayed the whole time?"

Harry glanced up from where he'd been tracing mindless patterns on the top of her hand. He slid his hand into hers, lacing their fingers together on the bed, and the warmth in his eyes was enough to keep her settled. "'Course I did," he told her, his voice as soft as the gentle path his thumb was tracing over the back of her hand. "I promised you I would stay, so I was here, holding your hand the whole time."