This Empty Northern Hemisphere (A Mumford and Sons fanfiction)

Chapter XII: Trouble Will Find Me

Chapter XII: Trouble Will Find Me

When Ted arrives at the hospital, it’s to find that Cherry has returned with a babysitter who looks positively bored out of her mind.

“Teddy bear!” Cherry cheers happily, jumping up from Winston’s side and hugging Ted tightly. Ted struggles not to say anything even though it hurts like hell just when she hugs him lightly.

“Hi Cherry,” He says, forcing himself to smile. Ted very quickly decides that he shouldn’t stay long. In fact, he probably shouldn’t have even gotten out of bed this morning. It pains him to walk, and as he takes a seat, he briefly wonders if maybe he should’ve seen a doctor last night.

“Hi Ted,” Winnie mumbles tiredly.

Ted tries not to let the smile fall from his face as he answers with a quiet hello and looks over his friend.

He still looks unbelievably pale in the harsh light of the room, and they must have put him on some new sort of medication because he looks like he’s not even entirely there, like he could fall asleep any moment. But Ted can’t help but be relieved because Winnie is safe if nothing else. He’s being taken care of, and hopefully he’ll be better soon.

“You seem very out of it today,” Ted comments as Cherry plops down into a seat across from him.

Winston manages to shrug a little, and tries to sit up. “They put me on something different last night. Makes me fu- freaking tired all the time. It sucks.” In truth, his mother had come to see him very early this morning before work, and found Winston awake, unable to fall back asleep because the morphine and sedative he had been given had worn off and the pain (while it wasn’t the worst he’d experienced) wasn’t really letting him relax enough to fall asleep.

So despite much protesting on Winnie’s part, his mother had asked the nurses to give him something for the pain once more as well as something to help him sleep.

Ted can’t help but smirk at the way Winston stops himself from swearing in front of his little sister.

“So you made it home all right last night?” Winston asks, letting out a long yawn and stretching like a cat. He sort of squeaks when he yawns and Ted finds it absolutely adorable.

“Yeah,” Ted lies smoothly. He’s almost shocked that he lies without even batting an eye. He hates lying to people, but right now doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to tell Winston he had gotten in an accident. Win would just get stressed out over nothing and he wouldn’t get better any faster. He’s one of those people that seems arrogant until you realize everyone else comes first and if something works out for him it’s just a bonus. “Feel asleep as soon as I got home.” That wasn’t really a lie, so it made Ted feel slightly better.

“You look like shit,” Winston admits. He had noticed the cut that’s half hidden by blonde curls and he had most definitely heard the uneven rhythm of Ted’s steps that meant he’s limping.  “Didn’t sleep well?” He gets the dreadful sense that Ted is hiding something.

“I suppose not. I’m not staying very long-,” Ted says unhappily. “-partially because I skipped school, and partially because I’m taking today to catch up on some sleep.” He leaves out the fact that the other partial involved a car crash.

Winston doesn’t say anything at first. He’s too drowsy to comprehend things too quickly and the thought that Ted might be hiding something slips away from him in only a second. “Okay,” He replies, yawning again. “That’s fine, I’ll have Cherry to keep me company for a while longer. I’ll probably fall asleep again here soon.”

Ted gets up again, feeling quite exhausted himself. He yawns now because Winston had started the trend. He needs to stand or else he’ll just fall asleep in the chair.