WHERE:Vallo City: The Hospital WHEN:August 14th, 2021 (Backdated) WHAT:Regina wakes up in the hospital, with Henry watching over. WARNINGS:N/A STATUS:Complete
When Regina woke, she knew that there was something wrong. It wasn't a physical feeling, but some unknown sixth sense that told her that something very bad had happened. That was only confirmed, when she opened her eyes and saw that she was in a hospital room and that her son was asleep in a chair beside the bed she was in.
From the way the curtains were drawn, she couldn't tell if it was day or night. She looked around the room to see if she could find a clock that would tell her the time. She spied an analog clock hanging above the doorway entrance. One o'clock. Whether that was AM or PM, she had no idea.
There was a small part of her that considered waking Henry to ask him what was going on. Instead, her motherly side won. She allowed him to sleep on and leaned back into her pillow to get more rest. She started to pull the comforter up over her shoulder so that she was fully covered again, but when she pulled the blanket, a phone that had been sitting on top of it clattered to the floor, causing enough noise to wake anyone in that room.
Wincing, she waited for Henry to wake. When he did, she offered him a soft, "Sorry, sweetie."
It had been a weird week. Magic disappearing and the world going a bit crazy hadn’t been anything new, but having his mother disappear and apparently run off to join the zombified group had been fairly new. Not being able to do anything about it had definitely sucked, especially once everything had been wrapped up and his mother had been brought to the hospital.
Henry didn’t like hospitals, not after his previous experiences in them, but he couldn’t fathom letting his mom wake up alone without him there. He wasn’t all that sure about the time either and blinked at the sudden crash coupled with her voice, before turning his attention toward her.
Sweetie.
That meant she remembered things, right? He really hoped that was the case. “How are you feeling, mom?”
There were only bits and pieces of the last week coming to mind, but what she did remember worried her. A loss of magic, a loss of memories, and turning against those that she considered allies at worst and family at best. The details were still a mystery to her, but she knew that Vallo had been up to its tricks again and she had been hurt in a skirmish.
Though, oddly enough, she didn’t feel any pain. Checking to see if she was hooked up to an IV, she frowned. “Good?” She said, uncertainty in her tone. “Though I have a feeling I shouldn’t actually be doing this well for being in a hospital. Did someone heal me?” She couldn’t call her magic forward like she normally would be able to, but her innate ability to sense magic was around now. She could sense magic of some sort had been used on her, magic from the universe they both came from.
Maybe Emma came by to heal her? It wouldn’t be the first time, but it felt different from that particular Good Magic.
Okay, good. Henry nodded along to everything she was saying while he watched her. She definitely seemed more coherent and looked like she wasn’t in any pain as well. Both were a big improvement to how he thought she’d been. “There’s been people going in and out healing what they can.”
It wasn’t a lie. Various healers had been making the rounds around the hospital. They just hadn’t needed to work on his mom because he’d already written her wounds away. He hadn’t touched her magic though, not sure how interfering with that might backfire. But Henry doubted that wiping away any lingering pain would have some weird consequence that he couldn’t foresee. Not when others could do the same with a touch or a spell or something.
“Do you remember anything?”
Regina’s lips puckered in a grimace, as she tried to recall anything from the past few days that made any sort of sense. “I think I lost my magic?” She ventured as a guess, lifting her hand and examining it. Concentrating, she turned her palm up and snapped her fingers. The fireball she was trying to recall only resulted in a few sparks, but nothing substantial. Huffing out, she dropped her hand in annoyance and looked at her son.
“What happened, kiddo? I really don’t remember much.” She did remember Thurvishar though and being knocked out by him, but the circumstances leading up to that were all a blur and her head started to hurt. “Did I hurt someone?” She asked, a little bit of fear creeping into her voice. It was a good sign that she hadn’t been cuffed to her bed when she woke up, but that didn’t mean much.
Henry shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.” Though he couldn’t be too sure if that wasn’t the case once she’d disappeared on him, but no one had mentioned her having hurt them during all of the chaos of the fighting that happened. “Remember how magic was being weird and Vallo was...disappearing or whatever?”
It had been all over the network for a bit and Henry thought she might remember that part. “Turns out Vallo was hiding some ancient evil that feeds off magic or something? Or I guess they had thought they had killed it but it was only dormant. But it did different things to people. You lost your memories and magic. But you’ve got the memories back so the magic will probably come back soon too.”
“I remember,” Regina said, recalling now how the Grimsbane patriarch had disappeared, how the forest had been full of void spots. She reached out for Henry now, with worry still lining her face. “I think I was in the forest for a bit? Did I leave you?” The more information Henry gave her, the more was coming back. Like trickles of water filling a cup, her mind started to give her more. “I’m so sorry, Henry.” She felt horrible that she hadn’t been strong enough to resist whatever this evil was.
“Yeah, you texted everyone on your phone trying to figure out who you were,” Henry told her as he took hold of her hand, and then gave it a squeeze. “It’s not your fault, mom. A lot of people were affected by the craziness.” She wasn’t in a coma or half of the other things that the others were dealing with so he was going to count this as a win.
“You were safe though? While I wasn’t in the right state of mind?” The concern was clear. They had support systems, sure, but with a lot of people being affected, who knew who was around to watch over her son. He was grown and an adult himself now, but that would never stop Regina from worrying about his safety in a world that had magic so widespread, that had so many powerful people and potential enemies around.
“I hung out with Thurvishar once you were straight up missing,” he assured, which had at least given him a chance to do some research too even if it hadn’t led anywhere. “And lots of people checked in on me.” Thankfully it hadn’t been that long of an event, not compared to some of the other crap they had endured back home and in previous worlds. No one had died in this one, which was a definite step up from Tumbleweed where it seemed like someone died or permanently lost an eye or something every other week.
Huh. She hadn’t realized how involved in her life Thurvishar was getting until now, but she pushed that little revelation aside until things were more settled. She laid back onto her pillow, refusing to let go of Henry’s hand. “Good. At least I don’t have to turn anyone into a frog when my powers come back.” If they came back. But the sparks of magic from earlier were a good sign, she just had to be patient. “This evil? It was defeated this time?”
Henry shook his head at the frog comment. Thankfully no one would need to handle being a frog for a while. “I think so?” He didn’t really have all of the details about that. “You’re probably better off asking Ms. Sara or someone about that.” One of the people who had actually been out there fighting.
Though no one seemed to be making plans for doing anything else to whatever it had been so Henry was taking that as a sign that it had been defeated. Hopefully for good. Or at least for another thousand years or so.
It was never a bad day when she had an excuse to talk to Sara, so she only nodded. Things weren’t likely to be this calm if there was still some kind of ancient evil lurking. “I’ll save the rest of the inquisition for after we get some sleep, yeah?” She shoved over in her bed to make room for Henry. “Come on, get up here. And don’t act like you’re too old for this.”
Henry carefully got up onto the bed beside her, not wanting to accidentally injure her after he’d just managed to heal her. If he’d known about the magic part he’d have written that in too but it was probably too late to do that now. “You should get some more sleep.”
“Yes Mom,” she returned, lovingly mocking his standard reply to her whenever she got on him about anything. Settling back into her pillow, she closed her eyes. “Love you kid.”