Fell In A Concrete Jungle (Nicholas Ruffilo/ Bad Omens)

17: Let me help you.

He found a vein suitable enough before he hooked her up to the IV—once more, she wasn't budging which had my heart racing. "Fluids will help her, make her some food when she wakes up but don't overwhelm her system, do soup or something light, nothing heavy, and not a lot of spice as well, understood? I nodded to show him I understood what he meant. "Good, text me if you need me again but I need to go finish this job, I think I might know where the USB is" we had been trying to find a USB that contained files we needed, but after a member of our party passed away, we had spent years trying to find it.

Around lunch, I sat in the room with Gemma, I had the TV on as noise, but I mainly doodled on my notepad I had. Drawing a character underneath the mood, one who was battling demons as they wanted to get at her.
Hearing a groan from the lounge chair, my head flew up seeing Gemma waking up, she hissed when she moved the hand that had her IV in it. Shooting to my feet, I rushed to her to stop her from pulling it out. "Gemma, hey, look at me" her green eyes fluttered open once more, "you gave me a heart attack out there, Nyx" part of me wanted to be so angry, but the other part of me was just glad she was okay.

"What the hell is in my hand?" she glanced down at the IV that was currently hydrating her.

Standing to my feet, she watched as I looked down at her. For a second, I could have sworn a blush crept on her cheeks even. "Well princess" she looked back up at me at the tone I used, it wasn't as cold as the night she snuck out, but it wasn't going to coddle her either. "You seemed to be dehydrated, you were so dehydrated and even malnourished that your body basically went into overdrive, so you are currently getting fluids and I am about to grab us something to eat, together" there it was, the fear bright in her eyes at the thought of trying to stomach something. "I'll be with you the whole time, and if you puke it back up then we try again in a bit. . . I wasn't lying to you when I told you the first time I killed someone I couldn't keep anything down for the first day." She watched as I went to the door. "Watch something on the television, and I will be right back" before she could protest, I left the room.

It wasn't a heavy soup I made. Just a package of chicken noodle, something to get into her system and enough for both of us to have. I placed it into two soup cups before placing the spoons inside and carrying them and a package of crackers to the room she was in. Her eyes went straight to the steaming cups of soup in my hands. "Nicholas, I don't know about this. . ." she admitted softly, maybe more so to herself rather then to me.

Pulling the small table between us closer to her, as I took a seat in the chair beside her, placing my ankle over my knee and passing her a cup of soup. "We are going to try, when I couldn't stomach that day it was Jolly who took care of me, like this actually—I was hooked up to an IV to make sure I was receiving something, and he made me soup. . . When I puked it back up, he was never angry or disgusted with it he would hand me a cloth, help clean up and then we'd try again because your body just doesn't understand right now that you need to eat, your mind tricks you into thinking you physically can't and so your body and mind work together, which is why we are starting small" I said taking a spoonful of soup into my own mouth, watching the anime she had put on while I was away in the kitchen.

Gemma was hesitant, it wasn't hard to see that. "What about training?" she seemed sad at the thought of not being able to train.

"You are training," she looked at me confused. "Right now, you are training your body to take in the proper nutrients you need to survive, once we know you can do that then we will resume where we left off" she wanted to protest, but my eyes looked at her which had her closing her mouth. "I am not having you pass out like you did today—what do you think your father would have said? He is currently on his honeymoon for another few days and if he heard—"

She cut me off, her tongue felt like steel as the words flowed. "If he found out, he wouldn't care about it because I was nothing but a pawn in the media for him" her green eyes a shade darker as if the light in them dimmed to shadows to show her emotions. "He wanted a boy, settled for the fact I was a girl and told me to get over my mothers' death on her birthday, if anything whatever he and I had is gone and I will never trust him" she took a spoonful of soup as we fell into silence.

It was a relief to hear she no longer trusted him, but at the same time I didn't want to push it too far knowing she was still healing from the damage he had caused her.
"I am here Gemma, let me help you" I said letting the words soak into her emotions, she needed someone and maybe if she heard me say it she knew it was okay to talk to me.
She managed to eat half her soup before she felt sick, I had given her a bucket in case she was, but the sickness never came. "Kane will haunt you, but you can't let him consume you" I said handing her another cup of soup once dinner time came around.

And we repeated it, until we both woke up the next day, we repeated it.
She was able to hold her food down and as we slowly worked on the training again, I could notice a difference in how she moved. She was more focused, more fluid in her movements.
As I went hand to hand with her, she ducked my every move and slammed herself into me causing us to fall, her on top of me. Not even thinking, she grabbed my hands pinning them above my head with one hand like I had done to her so many times, her arm pressing down on me as her breaths were calmer. "I whooped your ass, Ruffilo" she smiled down at me, I could feel her breath fanning over my face.

Shaking any thought from my head, I nodded my head as I smirked. "Congratulations, Nyx." We stood up brushing dirt off ourselves. "I'd say you're able to graduate basics." She watched as I walked over to the weapon rack we had, pulling out knives her eyes widened. "Relax, these ones are fake, the real ones are for later—but now we get to learn everything you just did, and this time we are adding weapons" but she didn't know, she was the biggest weapon we currently had.