Pellucid answers skin#

She holds his hand, the two of them together, scarred and healing. She lets everything else drop away, and it’s only the two of them, alone in this quiet room, with their physical wounds that will heal. Her burned wrist is throbbing, and she holds onto that pain. Charlie and Matthew try to take her home again, but they don’t actually expect her to come. Their friends hover, though by now it is deep into the night. Lucien wakes, jokes about his injury, sleeps, wakes again. If all the gossip made them know she belongs here, she will manage to be grateful for it. The trauma doctor reported to her immediately, and the ward sister waived aside the rules about visiting hours. He called her Jean and took her arm like he thought she might stumble, then gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, as he drove too fast to the hospital. She feared the worst from the moment Charlie came in the door tonight, his face ashen. As long as she’s know him he has barreled around heedlessly, and she has worried and told herself not to, and tried not to remember what it feels like to be left behind. She always half expected this, deep in her subconscious. Her mind is processing only single words. She lets herself breathe again, matching her breath to his, lets her own heart start beating once more.

Pellucid answers skin#

She watches Lucien’s chest rise and fall steadily, and she feels his pulse thrum under the warm skin of his wrist.