Tangled After The Series - There's No Such Thing As 'The End'

Chapter 24: When destiny's found

Warnings: mentions of blood, stitches and pain

     Outside the sun sank and the moon began to rise, the light moved and dimmed across the room. As the shadows continued to lengthen, Eugene lit the candles in the room. Ruddiger had climbed off Cassandra's lap and sat atop Varian's feet. Rapunzel had pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed on Cassandra's side. Varian hadn't woken up and Cassandra hadn't moved.

     "You hungry Sunshine?" Eugene asked his wife,

     "Do you need to ask?" she joked, "If it's not me, it's these two," she placed an affectionate hand on her swollen belly,

     Eugene chuckled, "I'll talk to the servants," and left the room. Rapunzel cradled her belly with her hand and rested the other one on the mattress. Cassandra still didn't say a word and Rapunzel didn't know if there was anything she could do that would be comforting to either of them.

     Eugene returned with a plate of fruit, cheese and bread, he grabbed a hunk of bread for himself then passed the plate to Rapunzel who balanced it on her knee. "Cass do want anything?" she asked,

     "No thanks Raps," Cassandra muttered, not taking her eyes off Varian,

     Rapunzel sighed, "Come on Cass, you've got to eat something."

     Cassandra looked back at her, tearing her eyes away from Varian for the first time in two hours, "Seriously Raps, don't worry. I'm really not hungry-"

     At that moment, Varian's breathing hitched and everyone else held their breath. He grunted and his eyes scrunched, but then they lazily opened. Varian blinked a few times and tried to collect his thoughts together. He realised that he was in his room – when the blurriness from sleep faded away, he saw that it was his room in the Castle – but he didn't remember how he got there. Varian took a quick inventory of himself: he felt more unsteady than usual, his limbs felt weaker and wobblier then they had yesterday and in his right side there was an ache that usually followed pain in his experience but it also felt numb at the same time. How sluggish he felt told him that he had been asleep for at least a few hours but yet he still felt pretty tired and he also felt a faint sense of nausea.

     The final traces of drowsiness left Varian's memory and he could remember everything. He noticed the weight pressing down on his feet and lifted his gaze to see Ruddiger looking back at him with his big green eyes. Varian continued his gaze upwards to see who was holding onto his hand and was surprised to see Cassandra, her eyes wide and hopeful. Moving his gaze behind her, he saw Rapunzel and Eugene – the former beaming in delight and the latter staring at him with a mix of fear and relief.

     Varian looked the Captain directly in the eye and said: "No wonder that killed you Eugene."
Eugene laughed and his wife exclaimed, "Oh, Varian!"

     Cassandra let a smile take over her face and dropped Varian's hand but she leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck, "Don't you ever scare me like that again," she mumbled into his shoulder, 

     Varian smiled and wrapped his other arm across her back, "Believe me I don't hope to be in that situation again either," but then he flinched, "Ow!"

     Cassandra shot backwards, "Oh I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?"

     "It's-it's alright Cass," he smiled at her warmly. The he placed his left hand over the bandage and tried to push himself up with his right arm but it trembled uncontrollably,

     "Here," Cassandra moved to the head of the bed and wrapped an arm around Varian's shoulders, holding him up then moved a pillow behind with the other like she had done that morning for Rapunzel, had it really only been that morning