Chapter Text
She blinked. Once, twice, three times. The blackness of the room steadily eased up until outlines of furniture, varying shades of dark grey against the even darker greys of just about everything else, appeared one by one.
It was dark out, Kate realised, as she stretched her arms by her sides, and wracked her aching brain to figure out the maths. It must've been at least four hours. Four whole hours since she fell out of a plane. A lot could happen in four hours.
It was raining, too, if the small scattering of raindrops hitting against the window was enough to base an assumption on. A fixed rhythm drummed over and over, every few seconds. It was almost enough to comfort her.
Pushing herself up with shaky hands, she shuffled backwards, sitting up against the headboard. Not her headboard, no. A stiff, metal headboard that, really, was more of a hard, cold bar that dug into her back. As cold as the winds that enveloped her as she fell, faster and faster, down towards… nothing. Blackness was all she could remember, a mirror of the dark room she found herself in. Surely she should be dead.
She moved her fingers, one after another, slowly, carefully. Checking that she was alive. Normal, normal, all normal, down to the stiff pinky that had cracked each time it was cold for the past twenty four years that cracked once again. She sat up further, pulling her legs into her chest as she ran cold hands along them, down to her feet. Her left ankle clicked into place when she moved it in a circle, as she expected; her fingers found the slight indent of a scar, the imprint of a rope long since untied, across her right foot, which, although she couldn't see it without light, stood proud against the smooth skin beneath.
Then she noticed it: breathing. Light, slow breaths from the side of the room, almost too faint to make out against the rustling of sheets beneath her, and the wind that rattled the curtains ever so slightly and blew the heavier drops of water, sending them tumbling onto the plastic windowsill on the opposite side.
"Osgood?" she whispered, hopeful and afraid as she turned towards the shadowed figure. "Osgood, is that you?" No response, except for the sound of slow breaths.
Her own breath caught in her throat, remembering everything all at once.
The plane. The pile of colourless, shapeless dust on the floor. The glasses, Osgood's glasses, smashed apart and broken into pieces. Osgood–perhaps it was her Osgood, perhaps not–was dead. They were gone, and it was her fault, God it was all her fault. She should've known better, known better than to leave them alone with the Master, the Mistress, whatever it was they were going by these days. Osgood was de–
"Kate, you're awake," said Osgood from the chair, their words cutting off the cacophony of deafening thoughts as they scrambled to their feet. They took Kate's hands in their own, soft palms surrounding cold ones, a blanket of warm security. As they moved closer, their forehead bumping against Kate's in an uncommon, yet all too familiar motion, all either of them wanted to do was cry. "Oh, Kate."
"Osgood," she began, voice breaking as she spoke (she would definitely blame that on the fall and the grogginess later on), "Osgood."
"Kate," was all they could reply.
"I– you were…"
"I thought I lost you, Kate. They didn't think you'd wake up," their words came out too fast, jumbled to the point of almost incoherence. "I couldn't lose you, too."
"The plane–"
"I know," Osgood finished. Their thumbs stroked up and down Kate's wrists, a calming caress, skin against skin. A pulse beat against Osgood's own, a reminder that Kate was alive.
"How–"
"Four weeks."
"Four weeks…" repeated Kate, then once again, "four weeks?"
"Everything is– well, I sorted everything at U.N.I.T. for you, to make sure that," they hesitated, eyes fluttering closed for a moment as they savoured the rare closeness of the older woman, "to make sure you didn't have to worry about it, about anything."
"Thank you. I appreciate that. Really, very much."
The realisation hit her once more, a stab of guilt and sadness and pain, one after the last.
"Os, your sister–" she cut herself off, shaking her head.
"There was nothing you could have done, Kate." A shallow, shaky breath escaped from their lips, hot against Kate's nose. "There will always be loss, painful as it is, it's quite inevitable."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay," they smiled, a sad smile that left emotion raw on their face even after it had faded from their lips. "It's okay. We'll be okay."
"Could you–"
"No. Goodness, no. I could feel the fear, the racing of their heart, but no. Nothing beyond that," a pause followed, their fingers wrapping around Kate's, then letting go, and repeating once again. "I'm not sure whether or not I would've wanted to. Knowing was hard enough."
"I won't pretend to understand your situation with your sister, but," she sighed, "I wish I did more. To help them, to protect them from Missy. I should have stopped her, Os. I should have stopped her from hurting our Osgood."
"Kate, you almost died!" They pulled away, both sets of hands falling into their respective laps, and then they continued, their voice barely more than a whisper, "I lost them, and the main thing, the only thing," they amended, "that gave me even an ounce of hope for the past month was you. The hope that you'd wake up," swallowing down a sob, they paused. Kate's finger, calloused and rough, sandpaper-y, but ever so gentle against their own skin, wiped away a stray tear. Kate always seemed to know where their tears fell, even in the dark. "I held onto that hope like a lifeline, Kate. If I lost you too, I–"
Kate shifted on the bed, swinging her legs up and over until her feet were firmly planted on the too cold floor. "Come here," she said, tugging at their hands until the mattress dipped under Osgood's added weight. An arm tucked itself beneath her own, another wrapping around her shoulders. "Everything's going to be okay, Os."
Curled up with them, then and there, Kate was willing to believe that it really would be.