Everything felt odd. It was like she was being woken up from a deep sleep but everything had felt so real that it took her brain a minute for her to realize where she was. Her eyes fluttered open slowly and she felt almost like she had a hangover. Only without the massive headache, she was exhausted and her entire body felt heavy, extremely heavy.
Lavender groaned. As her eyes started to focus she could tell that she was in medical. Her heart raced slightly. If she was in medical that meant something bad had happened. She turned her head and saw Cisco and her hand reached out for him. “Cisco? What’s going on?”
He hadn’t left her side since he’d woken up to find her comatose beside him. Cisco had no idea what was going on but he was relieved when she opened her eyes and even more so when she spoke. “You’ve been sleeping,” he said, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “For about two days actually. I couldn’t wake you up Sunday morning. There were a bunch of you, I don’t even know who all is here but you’re the first one to wake up. You and that guy over there, he’s pretty new, I think his name is Jesse?” Cisco didn’t know the guy although he’d seen him on the network.
“What…..were you dreaming? Do you remember anything? They kept saying you were medically stable but none of you would wake up.” He held tightly onto her hand and gave her a little smile. “I’m so glad to see you awake. I was a little bit worried.” That was the understatement of the century.
Lavender didn’t question him. It certainly felt like she had been sleeping, one of those deep sleeps where you still feel utterly exhausted when you wake up. However she did look confused when he said that she had been out of it for two days. Two days? That didn’t make any sense. When he mentioned Jesse she nodded. “He was there, with me.” Lavender replied. “Guess his comment about time feeling weird makes sense. Time didn’t feel right there.”
The question he asked was one that she was dreading but there were very few people that she could talk to about this and Cisco was of course one of those people. “Yeah, I remember everything.” She whispered. She hated being back here. Back in the hospital bed with Cisco by her side. She knew it was just a risk of being in Atlantis and the pros of being here severely overshadowed the cons. Even so, these moments were never easy. “It was like we went through different scenes. The second one, I was back at Hogwarts that night and Greyback was there.”
Cisco held tightly to her hand. He knew how difficult this had to be for her, she’d told him the story, the parts that he hadn’t read in the book and he was grateful that she had survived. “What? Why there? Was it like time travel? You had to go back and face him or something?” That didn’t explain why Jesse had been with her but then it clicked, he’d read something like this in a book. “A fear simulation? You had to face him before you could wake up? I’ve read about it, I guess I never thought Atlantis would toss that kind of thing out there.” Although it shouldn’t have surprised him, Atlantis did enough weird things bu this...he picked up Lavender’s hand and kissed it. “It’s over now. You did it, Lav. You got through it, he can’t hurt you anymore. Never again.”
Lavender nodded. “It does seem like it was some kind of fear simulation.” She shivered at the thought of it. His words really did make her feel better even if she still didn’t feel very brave. Lavender squeezed his hand. “Thank you.” She bit her lip and looked away from a brief moment before looking back to Cisco.
“What if-” She pauses. “People can come here from different points in time. What if some of them show up? They’ve brought in villains before…”
“No. That won’t happen,” Cisco said, shaking his head. “The people in Intake keep a close watch on who shows up, they’re on top of things. Even the villains who come through are watched and some of them get sent back right away.” He was trying to reassure himself as much as her even though he knew Fenrir Greyback was dead. People came from different times. “But you defeated him, Lav. Even if he did show up here, you conquered your fear, he can’t hurt you. You stood up to him and do you honestly think I would ever let someone like him get close to you if I could help it. I can open a portal and take us as far away as we can go in Atlantis.” He hadn’t tried to test his powers to the point of how far he could go but he was sure he could go anywhere on Atlantis island itself.
Lavender’s eyes closed as she took a few deep breaths in. Cisco was absolutely right. Even if he did show up, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. Everyone here would make sure that he would be locked up or forced to return home. He was also right about Lavender. She was stronger than she was at seventeen years old. And she did face him again, even if it was a fear simulator, Lavender didn’t know that at the time. She faced him and won. She could do it again too, if she needed.
She opened her eyes and smiled at Cisco. “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m really glad you’re in my life.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips. “So am I. I love you, Lavender, you’re the best thing about being here and I’m glad we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives together.” Cisco had never considered getting married, there was certainly no one at home that he was interested in and once he had come here and met Lavender, there was not question that he wasn’t going anywhere.