Rising Dawn (Willy Wonka X OC)

Healing

"Dawn?" I wake to a low murmur and a gentle caress on the shoulder. I'm fairly groggy, my mind is thick with sleep and my eyelids heavy, but I would recognize that voice anywhere. Will's back! Happiness thrums through me, although I'm too sleepy to act on it. I smile a little and reach for him with a heavy hand.

"Dawn, let's go downstairs, you'll be more comfortable down there." I stubbornly refuse to open my eyes and ruin the pleasant sleep trance, but I open and close my fist in the direction of Will's voice like a child wanting to be held. Why can't he just carry me? He's done it before with such ease. I don't want to come out of my cocoon of warmth. Why didn't he just carry me down in the first place?

He takes my hand and tugs at me gently as he cups his other hand on my cheek. "I'm sorry to wake you, but you're going to have to help me. I can't carry you."

Can't carry me? Why? I crack my eyes open, first noticing that the only light in the room comes from the lamp on the table to my right. My gaze rises to Will and I jolt upright, remembering his fight with Oscar. The warm glow from the lamp illuminates part of his face, but the other half is in shadow. He has a split lip that is bleeding a bit and the skin around one of his eyes is dark with the beginnings of a nasty bruise. He has one hand pressed to his ribcage and is holding himself at an odd angle. His nose is bleeding and his hair is matted in sections. I hardly recognize the man underneath those injuries because Will has always seemed so immaculate and somehow invincible. But those eyes. Those are Will's eyes. Steady and calm, filled with assurance.

He takes a deep breath, winces, clutches at his ribs, and I nearly throw up. The blood doesn't bother me. The bruises and injuries aren't difficult to look at. What made me nauseous was the flicker of helplessness in his eyes. For a second, a reflection of pain washed over his eyes. For just a second, I saw the silent plea of an injured animal, frightened and desperate. Something is very wrong.

"Will!" I jump to my feet, the blanket cocoon forgotten. There's a brief dizzy spell that forces me to slow down and remember that I still have injuries of my own. I lift a trembling hand to his face and wipe some blood from the bottom of his lip, making him wince. Regardless, he leans into my touch, closing his eyes. I continue in a whisper. "Will, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For this...and for him...and-"

"No." Will opens his eyes and wraps sticky fingers around my wrist. I know that his hands are sticky with blood, but I never take my hand off his cheek as his eyes bore into me. "Oscar is not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for, love."

It's my family's fault that Oscar was here in the first place and it was my fault that Will lashed out in the first place. If I hadn't followed, Oscar might have gone away and never gotten physical. If I hadn't followed, Will wouldn't have had to worry about protecting me. I have everything to be sorry for. "But-"

"No buts. It doesn't matter now anyway. He's been taken care of, you don't have to worry about him ever again." He nods as if trying to impart his confidence and assurance to me. I don't want to let it go because I still feel guilty, but I don't dare ask what happened to Oscar. I have no concept of time right now, there's no way for me to tell how long I slept. Oscar may have been brought to local authorities, or his body found a nice cliff to fall off of. Both scenarios are plausible, but if the fury in Will's eyes when I left them was any indication, one situation is definitely more likely. I purse my lips and sigh as I rub more blood from his face with a gentle thumb. Will uses the hand that's not still wrapped around my wrist to tilt my chin up so I'm looking in his eyes. "Hey, cheer up. He lost, once and for all. I won."

I scan his wounds and listen to his breaths rattle in his chest. "But at what cost?" He looks down and finally lets go of my wrist. I ignore the red stain on my skin and turn to pick up the blanket behind me. I turn back around to see Will's eyes unfocused, staring into the distance. "Let's go downstairs, so I can take a look at those injuries."