Well, two weeks goes by really fast. To make up for being late...again, this one is extra long so I hope you like it :)...Happy reading!
*North*
I can't breathe.
She was here.
Right here.
Her and her beautiful fucking voice were barely 20 feet away and I let her slip right through my fingers.
So close and now she's gone. And I can't breathe.
I can vaguely hear shouting, an unfamiliar voice mingling with the familiar ones of my brother's, but even those are muffled by the roar of blood rushing through my head. All I can hear are the echoes of her singing, terrible and wonderful all at once, breaking another piece of my heart with the soul deep sadness in every word.
As seconds pass, and she gets further and further away from me, I start to grow numb. It starts from the tips of my fingers, inching towards my heart slowly but surely until I can no longer feel the cold wetness of the dirt staining my jeans, or the pain burning me from the inside out. I can't hear, I can't think, and I can't feel. And for a brief moment I think that might be a good thing.
Who knew that breaking could hurt this fucking much?
"North!"
No.
"North, goddammit, you don't get to fucking lose it right now! Fuck!"
Hands shake me roughly, but I'm not ready to come back ye.
"Fucking hell, I hope you fucking forgive me for this, asshole."
What is he–? "What the fuck!"
Gabe shakes out his hand as if it it hurts, face slack with relief. "Thank fucking christ! You were freaking me the fuck out with that silent shit, but fuck your face is hard."
Rubbing at my jaw, I glare at him. "Well no one fucking old you to punch it, asshole."
My growled words have the opposite effect that they usually do, another relieved exhale leaving him before he turns serious eyes on me. "North...man, are you alright? I know that not finding her tonight sucks, but this feels like more than that."
I run rough fingers through my hair, tugging at the shaggy strands before deciding to tell him the truth. Him and the others who have finally given up their respective searches to join us deep in the woods, far enough away from the houses that I can only vaguely hear the sounds of the road. I'm tired of holding back from my brothers, when all it does is build shit up inside me until I can't take it anymore.
"Of course it's fucking more than that. I lost her when I promised she wasn't alone, she's obviously in pain, and...fuck man, hearing her voice tonight, knowing she's real and that she's still out there for me to find...it's...everything." A sharp, sad sounding laugh escapes me. "And I fucking lost her...again. What if something happens? What if I never find her?"
A large hand lands on my shoulder, bringing the oddest sensation of a weight being lifted as I confess my fears of losing my Baby forever, without ever really knowing her, or seeing the girl whose voice haunts me day and night.
"δεν φοβούνται, αδελφός. Θα τη βρούμε. Εν πάση περιπτώσει είμαστε ακαδημία, αν βάλουμε μαζί τα κεφάλια μας, είμαι βέβαιος ότι όλα θα αποκαλυφθούν έγκαιρα (Have no fear, brother. We will find her. We are academy after all, if we put our heads together I'm sure all will be revealed in time)," he rumbles and I nod.
"Ναι, αλλά αν δεν έχουμε χρόνο; (yeah, but what if we don't have time?)" What if we're too late?
"Would you two fuckers stop fucking talking about me!" Gabe's indignant shout works like a charm, and we all laugh, but there's a desperate edge to it like it's our only hold on our sanity.
Owen inclines his head towards Kota's house before briefly glancing across the street as we make our way from the forest, an odd flash of something breaking through his poker face so quickly I would've thought I imagined it.
"Gentleman, I believe a family meeting is in order to discuss our little runaway songbird."
A few of us nod, some grunt, and Gabe scoffs. "No shit, O-man."
After a few minutes more walking, we're climbing the stairs towards Kota's bedroom, once again filling the too small meeting space with tension and worry making the air stiflingly hot despite it being mid-December.
When we're all settled, ideas and theories are tossed around about my Baby.
"Maybe she just is a normal girl who needs space and likes sad songs." Lucian, ever the optimist.
"Nobody normal sings with as much heartbreak in their voice. You don't sound that tormented without having been truly broken." Victor knows what that's like.
"You don't sound that broken if you've had it fucking easy." Nathan hasn't, none of us have.
"Still sounds like an angel, even if a sad one." Silas believes in her as I do.
"An angel...I've heard that before. The trees hid her so well, and yet we could hear every tortured word." Kota is lost in his head, trying to puzzle out our problems like always.
"Anyone think her voice sounded a little raspy, though, like gargled nails?" Sean always worrying if we're okay, and now if she's okay.
"A hidden heart in the trees..." Owen's mutterings finally catch my ear and everyone's eyes cut to him.
"What did you just say?" I can't help the growl in my words.
All of a sudden Gabe, who until now had been suspiciously silent about the whole thing, jumps to a standing position from his seat by the window, running his hands through his hair in a nervous gesture I haven't seen this bad for years.
"Fuck, I have to tell you guys something, and you're probably going to hate me for it."
He pauses then, and I can feel my tentative grasp on my temper start to slip.
"Fucking hell, Gabe, you can't fucking say something like that and go silent. If you know something, tell me now or so help me god!"
Instead of yelling back at me like he normally would, he drops his hand behind his head and looks to the ceiling, breathing deeply before meeting my eyes again and all my ager flies away. I've never seen heartbreak in his eyes like this, never seen as many shadows or as much darkness in his normally mischief filled eyes as I do right now, and that more than anything scares the fuck out of me. The others as well if the intakes of breath I hear are any indication.
But the words he says next are like a punch in the gut.
"I know who your girl is, North."
***
*Dr. Roberts*
"Oh little bird, what has life done to you?"
The precious girl in question doesn't so much as twitch an eyelid at my quiet inquiry, remaining solidly unconscious on the hospital bed of her private room.
I can quite honestly say that this was not how I expected my night to go. When my nephew called me in an absolute panic, begging for a private room at the Academy hospital with me immediately while he struggled to speak, I had thought the worst. And the worst was nearly what I'd gotten.
Henry and his other half had shown up in the middle of the night carrying what, at the time, looked like a dead body. He was hysterical, and so Will had had to explain to me the identity of the small blonde child and how they had found her like this, beaten half to death and barely breathing, passed out cold beneath the payphone outside John Taylor's diner.
It was only after I'd examined her face, and familiar green eyes had opened ever so briefly, that I realized why my nephew was in tears over a perfect stranger. Imagine my surprise when the girl bleeding out on my table was none other than Sang Sorenson, the very Ghostbird I'd been trying to bring into the Academy several years ago, the one who had disappeared without a trace. Since the day I lost her, she had been the source of both my greatest regret, and my greatest fear, and I was left forever wondering, worrying, over how her life had turned out, if she even had one.
It seems now that my fears were entirely justified, and the guilt weighs like a brick house on my shoulders for not doing more to ensure her safety all those years ago. If I had, she never would have lived through the torture she had based on long forgotten scars and internal injuries.
"I'm so sorry, sweet girl," I tell her, my sad voice echoing in the empty hospital room, where the only other sounds come from the machines monitoring her heart.
A knock sounds at the door, and I look to see Henry and Will, freshly showered and cleaned of blood after I'd forced them home hours ago while I was in surgery with Sang.
"Hey Doc, how is she?"
I turn to face Will to answer his question, noting the sympathetic glance he sends his boyfriend who had rushed passed to sit by Sang's bedside and hold her hand. I don't imagine he'll be leaving there anytime soon, sentinel at her side just like when they were young, it's been killing him that he wasn't there to protect her from this.
"Physically, she will heal, but it will take time." Unsurprisingly, he catches onto what I don't say, the boy is sharp as a tack, observant and brilliant just like his sister.
"And emotionally?"
I sigh, running a hand over my mouth as I turn to observe my distraught nephew, whose head is pressed to his and Sang's joined hands, eyes closed tightly as if he's trying to wish her pain away.
"Emotionally, well, we'll have to see. If you two had been any later, there's a chance she could have died tonight, as it stands she lost a lot of blood and was beaten brutally by someone I assume at home. That can break a person, but she's always been strong. It's up to her, and who she becomes when she wakes up."
"She'll still be Sang. She's the strongest, kindest person I've ever met. Not even death could change a heart as big as hers, she won't let it," Henry says, obviously having heard our conversation despite his intense focus on the little bird, sounding as if he's trying to convince himself more than us with his words.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I give it a slight comforting squeeze. "I hope you're right."
For the next several hours, I leave Sang with the boys, entrusting her to their care while I finish rearranging my schedule for the next few weeks. I want to give my full attention to the little bird, and we have more to discuss when she wakes up about where here life will take her after this, where she'll live. If she'll have me, I hope that it will take her to me.
Scanning the schedule, I regretfully place most of my patients with Dr. Green, hoping that he won't mind the extra hours. I hear his team is about to finish ahead of schedule at the local public high school, and with it nearly every one of their younger members will be on track for graduation. I trust him far more than some of the other idiots running this place to take care of my patients, although he's seemed off lately, distracted, worried, even sad on certain occasions.
When he's ready, he'll tell me, but for now I can provide the distraction of work.
A beeping sound alerts me to the increasingly late hour, so I close up the office and head back to Sang's room.
The sight that greets me is an entertaining one: Sang, solidly asleep on the bed, curled protectively over her injured left side; Henry still holding her hand, only now snoring heavily with his head on her uninjured shoulder; and lastly, Will, asleep with his head on Henry's shoulder.
My laughter stirs the boys, and after plentiful reassurances that she won't disappear again if they leave, I convince them both to go home for the night and get some much needed sleep.
"See you soon, Blondie," Henry whispers to her, dropping a kiss to her forehead before nodding goodbye to me as they walk out the door.
Another hour goes by in silence before the rustling of sheets pulled my focus from her x-rays, and sharp relief fills me when I see her eyes finally open.
I watch as she blinks around in confusion, sad green eyes unfocused as she glances around the room until they land on me and widen.
"Am-am I d-dead?" Her voice is so weak, and it takes several tries for her to even manage those three little words. Even so, my heart still breaks for her that that could ever be her first assumption after waking up somewhere unknown.
Cautiously, so as not to startle her, I stand and make my way to the seat by the bed. "No, little bird, you're not dead, but you did come very close. Right now you are at the hospital in Charleston."
I wait for her to absorb this information, hating the tears that fill her eyes.
"She really did it this time," I hear her mutter brokenly, and my suspicions that this was someone at home, someone she knew, are confirmed. "Wh-who- are y-y-y–" a ragged cough interrupts her attempt at speech as her voice gives out and I immediately hand her a glass of water.
"Don't try to talk too much, little bird, you're vocal chords are very fragile right now, in fact," I pause, looking around before spotting the small dry erase board and marker that I'd grabbed for her earlier and hand it to her. "Why don't you write down your questions and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. As for who I am, my name is Phil Roberts, and I've been the doctor looking after you."
As I had hoped, recognition flashes in her eyes when I say my name, and her lip quivers ever so slightly. "Strawberry," she croaks out before covering her mouth with her hand as if surprised by its betrayal.
The proof that she remembers me, and what I'd taught in such a short time so long ago, fills me with pride. "Stethoscope."
A great big gush of air leaves her, all the tension disappearing from her battered body before she takes my hand and squeezes as hard as she can while tears fall down her face, only happy this time. "Y-y-you found me. You s-said you would and you d-did," she whispers brokenly and I recall one of the very first conversations we'd had at Henry's house.
"So you're a doctor?"
I looked at the tiny slip of a girl sitting beside me at the dinner table and smiled. "Yes, little bird."
Her nose scrunched. "I'm not a bird. And I'm not that little, my cute is just more concentrated," she told me with a wit far beyond her years.
I laughed. "That it is, and a bird is a girl in the Academy." I'm not worried about her knowing, Henry had spilled the beans about the 'super spy organization' his uncle worked for.
Green eyes widened in awe at that. "Oh, then it's alright." Turning to me, she rests her head on a fist. "You guys help people right? Make the world better?"
"The Academy is all about family, and helping others less fortunate than ourselves."
She nodded. "So you defeat the bad guys? What about if someone was hurt? What if someone got lost? Could you find them?"
I tried to keep the surprise from my face at her pointed questions, astute little thing for one so young. "Yes, we get the bad guys and keep others from getting hurt. As for being lost, the Academy is far reaching, I'm sure we could find someone lost."
She looked down at her plate, moving around the spaghetti noodles before glancing across the street to her house, eyes unseeing. "What about when someone is lost to their mind, and they forget about someone else and they get lost? Would you find me if I was lost?"
Concerned about the turn of this conversation, I stare into green eyes usually so full of life, worried when I find them lightly shadowed. "Always, little bird. I would always find you if you were lost."
Coming back from the long forgotten memory, I gently place my hand on her head, and lightly stroke her hair. "Always, Sang."
A genuine smile, small though it is, breaks across her black and purple features, and the sight of it warms my heart. She's going to be just fine, eventually.
Dragging the dry erase board to her she wrote something before turning it to me, and I laughed when I saw what she wrote:
Did you know that you have a "kick me" sign stuck to your back?
Feeling around for it, I see she's telling the truth. I do, in fact, have a kick me sign stuck to my back in the very recognizable handwriting of my youngest patient at the hospital. He's an Academy who spends far too much time listening to Luke Taylor.
"Ah yes, thank you for letting me know. I owe you one."
When she writes "Shouldn't you Academy folk be more careful about using phrases like that?" I can't help but chuckle.
"It's good to know your sense of humor hasn't changed," I joke and she giggles quietly.
It's about the only thing that hasn't, she writes before frowning.
Trying to keep things light, I joke again. "I can see that, never thought I'd see you without that long curtain of blonde hair. Henry loved it when you taught him to braid. I know an Academy boy who would have given the world to lay claim to that hair." An image of an irate Gabriel spewing profanity to see someone cut hair like that flashes in my mind and I start to smile before the sound of a muffled sob freezes me where I am.
Instead of laughing with me, Sang runs her hands through her hair and begins to cry hysterically.
Panicking slightly, I move to sit next to her on the bed, and hesitantly wrap my arms around her, careful not to jostle any injury. But the second my arms close around her, she presses into my chest and cries her heart out.
But the worst happens when all the tears are gone, when she manages to have a voice for a long while and tells me everything. She tells me about her stepmother cutting her hair, binding her, remaking her into a boy, forcing her to live as one, beating her, berating her, hating her until she had finally tried to kill her. She told me of her father who ignored all of, who apparently had left them all for another family. She told me of her sister who did her best to make all of it worse, who was obviously so blinded by jealousy of Sang that it had made her cruel and bitter. And finally, she told me of the nine boys she'd fallen in love with, but who she worried would never be able to forgive her for deceiving them.
Three thoughts went through my head when she had cried herself to sleep.
One. I will never be able to forgive myself for losing her when she was young.
Two. I can no longer say that I would never commit murder.
Three. I finally know why Sean has been so distracted lately
"Oh little bird, what am I going to do with you?"