Chapter Text
Eventually, Horace came too.
Wheeled in on a chair, still clad in a healer’s gown and bundled in far too many blankets, he looked pale and pinched, sweat clinging to his brow from the exertion of simply being upright. His side was wrapped tightly, and every breath looked like it hurt. But he'd insisted--no, demanded--to be brought to Will’s room. No one could tell Horace no when he got that specific look in his eyes. Not even the healers.
He sat beside his best friend, speaking slowly and deliberately, as though pacing himself was the only way he’d make it through.
He talked to Will about the mission. About how he remembered bits and pieces of it--the ambush, the confusion. The days following the ambush. The way the trees looked stranger and stranger every time he weaved in and out of consciousness. About the moment he thought he might die. And how every time he opened his eyes, Will was there, and how that brought him comfort.
He told him about how bad the soup was in this infirmary. About Cassandra fussing over him, and about how flustered that makes him. About how bad his hair looked right now and how deeply offended he was that no one had brought him a brush.
Nothing.
Will didn’t look at him.
Eventually, Horace’s voice started to strain. And he faltered. He looked at Will’s face--empty, quiet, eyes focused somewhere no one else could see.
Horace pressed his lips together, trying not to let the sting of tears overwhelm him. It shouldn’t hurt this much, and yet it did. The fact that Will had fought so hard for him, bled for him, held him together through sheer force of will, and now couldn’t even look at him.
But somehow… he wasn’t surprised.
Whatever had broken inside Will had cracked something deep.
Horace remembered very little from the woods, but what he did remember was pain. So much pain stitched together like fragments in his mind. Screaming from those around them. Will's bleeding face hovering over his, Will's broken hands pumping his chest to help him breathe. Will dragging bodies through mud and blood to check for pulses; limping to and from other fallen soldiers, despite looking to be injured himself. Will whispering things Horace couldn’t hear, cradling him like something precious, like something he couldn't bear to lose, with hands that trembled.
That look in his eyes...
Horace remembered.
Not everything, but certainly enough.
Enough to know that whatever had broken in Will's mind, would've broken in anybody else's mind much sooner.
When the healers wheeled him back to bed, there were silent tears on his cheeks. He fell asleep soon after.
Alyss was next.
She had been to see him several times, coaxing him to sip water, gently cleaning the dried blood from his hands. She had brought lavender oil, just a little. Will loved the scent of lavender; he often diffused it in the cabin and brought a little on missions to ease his anxiety. She had hoped the smell would draw something back, but to no avail.
Sometimes she talked to him. Other times, she just sat, and stared, and hoped.
But this time, she had watched Horace's one-sided conversation from the hallway. Something in her heart dipped when Will didn’t respond. Not even to Horace.
He was their last hope.
Gilan had come, the Baron had come, Crowley had come, Cassandra had come, and Halt had never even left...
Horace was their last chance to reach Will through physical attempts to connect with his psyche.
Alyss entered the room slowly, quietly. The flowers on the bedside were new again--Cassandra’s doing, no doubt--and a navy colored blanket had been tucked neatly around his shoulders.
She sat by his side, gingerly took his hand, and pressed it to her heart, speaking softly to him as if he could really hear her. Like he was just somewhere behind a wall, and all she had to do was knock hard enough, "I’m here, sweetheart," she whispered.
And then--
a flicker.
It was nothing. Less than nothing in fact.
But his eyes shifted. Just slightly. Just once.
To her.
And then away, like it never happened at all.
Alyss' heart stopped.
Her breath caught in her throat, heart hammering wildly against her ribs. Did she imagine it?
No words. No smile. No change in expression. But there had been movement, right?
Alyss looked quickly to where Halt stood in the corner of the room, still as stone. His eyes were locked on Will, wide, and only blinking once.
He had seen it too.
It was so brief that he doubted it for a moment, but the look on Alyss' face confirmed it for him just as well as it did for her.
Their gazes met, just for a second. Neither of them said anything, they didn’t need to.
Because Will had moved.
He had seen her.
It was momentary, it was quicker than a heartbeat, but he had moved.
It was something.
And in a week filled with nothing, something felt like a miracle.