Chapter Text
When Nick stumbles into the clearing which leads to the Hanging Tree, he knows it's too late.
“Ziggy! Hey…Hey…Don't die on me, okay?" He pleads softly, cradling her face tenderly, just like back in the Science and Nature cabin. “You were supposed to be on the bus. Why weren't you on the bus, Ziggy?”
Ziggy remains still under his hands.
Just like Jeremy…Sean…Jesse…Rod…Stacey. Because odds are always stacked against Shadysiders.
Even if Nick gets her heart beating, it will still be too late.
Don't let her die... He sends out a prayer and starts administering CPR. Feels rage and helplessness the longer nothing happens. "Come on…Come on!" he desperately tries and pleads again. Help her! Help, Ziggy!
Nothing stirs outside or inside him. Everything remains still, just like Ziggy.
Nick grits his teeth, redoubles both his physical and mental efforts.
“I wore that suffocating robe…I did the ritual…I gave you what you wanted…I gave you more than Solomon gave you in his entire lifetime—” Nick pauses, leans down to blow air into Ziggy’s lungs. “M-More than what my father gave you…Now give me what I want…Tell me what I have to do to get what I want!”
More…
The Heart underneath the campgrounds, the Hanging Tree, underneath both Sunnyvale and Shadyside, finally rumbles.
More…
More ? Nick ponders. More blood?
The Devil’s mark is full. Almost overflowing with Shadyside blood. Which means…
Sunnyvaler? You want Sunnyvale blood?
He suddenly remembers Sheila, emerging from the Outhouse he limped past, shrieking about counselor Gary’s head and how everything was Ziggy’s fault: “She did this! She’s possessed and she killed him! We have to get out of he–where are you going?! Are you…leaving me?! Nick! Nick!”
And the pieces fall into place.
Why Ziggy wasn’t where she was supposed to be…why she never got on the bus.
His expression darkens as he stops CPR. "I can give you Sheila…" There's a solitary shovel near a hastily dug hole underneath the Hanging Tree. "I can give you her friends..." He pauses one heartbeat to consider. "Will."
Heir…The Heart stirs hungrily now. Heir…
Nick chuckles, utter relief and joy flooding him. "My brother’s all yours.” He vaguely wonders if that’s why his father decided to have a second son. To pawn off his existence in some future deal. “I need time. I’ll get it done. But I can give you Shiela now if you save Zig—”
Rage and annoyance, not his own, jolts his whole being. Heir! A chaotic mix of voices shriek together in his head. A son!
"Fuck!" Nick curses, toppling on his side on the grass, right next to Ziggy.
After the unholy screaming dissipates, his father's voice speaks clearly. Do you understand, Nicholas?
He stares at Ziggy’s pale face. A few strands of hair have fallen over her eyes. He feels the urge to tuck them back.
He stills, however, his hand freezing in mid-air as a memory plays of two weeks before, after Joseph Goode's funeral:
"Nick, have you met Becky?"
Nick simply tugs at his uncomfortable tie, ignoring his mother and Sheila's friend. "No."
Chuckles ensue. "We met at camp, Mrs. Goode. A snake from the Science and Nature cabin escaped and the counselors were busy and then Nick...he came out of nowhere and saved me,” Becky murmurs gratefully as if he performed a Biblical miracle. “And Annie."
"Nick…” His mother's eyes widen in absolute delight. “You never mentioned that you saved Becky and her sister.”
Nick shrugs, finally loosening the noose around his neck. "Slipped my mind." Though he clearly remembers Ziggy, unlocking the cage of the camp rabbits and crooning: You're all free now...you don't have to be stuck here like me.
"Yeah…it was a pretty scary day, Mrs. Goode,” Becky is quick to agree with him, eyeing him appreciatively. “I would want to forget about it too.”
"Oh Rebecca, please call me, Susan.” His mother’s hands incessantly start fluttering and fussing over Becky’s dress and elegantly styled hair. “Our families have known each other for how long? Decades? We're practically family now. Isn't that right, Nick?"
Nick doesn’t need to reply. With everyone wearing black, it’s easy to slip into the crowd of mourners and disappear.
“Nick!”
Nicholas?
He jolts back to the present.
Do you understand what I’m asking?
Did my mother put you up to this? Nick almost blurts. One look at Ziggy’s pale, unmoving form stops any further rebellious thoughts. "Yes sir," he mumbles compliantly, feeling his cheeks grow hot. “I-I understand.”
He doesn't get a compliment or a pat on the back.
The late Joseph Goode never gave those. Not to family.
His dead father also married more than a few years after he became Sheriff, nearly approaching his mid-thirties. That's a long way into the future. Nick has more than a decade to wrinkle out the details. For now…
Nick grunts, painfully pulling himself upright on his injured leg.
Ziggy has to live.
Rubbing his hands, closing his eyes, Nick tries again. But this time:
“I wish Christine Berman lives…” He swallows, delicately brushing strands of hair off Ziggy’s face. “I wish the mother of my future child lives.”
Ziggy’s eyes fly open, her entire body arches violently, shock coursing through her.
Nick’s palm immediately cradles the side of her face as she gasps for air. "It's okay..." His thumbs alternate between stroking errant strands of her signature red hair and trying to brush the specks of blood off her face. “Breathe…” He gets lost in her blue eyes as she gulps in great lungful of air. “Breathe, Ziggy.”
She blinks rapidly, eyes darting around fearfully as she strains for oxygen.
His confusion melts to understanding. “They're gone. You're safe.” His hand rubs her arms soothingly, lingers over the pulse thrumming reassuringly to know it’s not a dream before he finally allows relief to wash over him. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”
She stares at him wildly before her blood-stained lips part. "C-Cindy..." She rasps, clawing at his arm before clawing at the grass with desperate fingers, trying to reach for something next to her. "C-Cindy..."
His gaze follows her hand and lands on another, extended towards Ziggy, fingers never destined to touch.
Oh.
He was so focused on Ziggy, he didn’t even—
"The witch...the curse...i-it's real..." Ziggy wheezes deliriously, knotting her fingers in his shirt while her other hand stretches for Cindy’s unmoving fingers. “She was angry at me…wanted me to…run…Tommy…a-and then Cindy…” Her face crumples, eyes dissolving in tears Nick instinctively reaches to catch with his thumbs. “C-Cindy—” A sob pierces the silence of the open field. “C-Cindy…” She tries to push herself up, grimaces with a sharp cry that makes his heart stop.
"Hey! Hey, don’t!” He tightens his hold on her trembling shoulders, halting her second attempt. “Ziggy, please, you're hurt. Don't move."
Ziggy's face screws up and eyes clench shut. He watches tears slide over her temples and soak into her hair. “It’s all my fault.”
“No. No, it isn’t, Ziggy,” he tries to soothe. "Come on."
“I bled on the bone…” Another sob wrenches out, shaking her whole frame, piercing his chest. “It’s my fault.”
"Ziggy…” He watches the quick rise and fall of her chest, panicked. “Please. You need to calm down..."
"She's not supposed to be…she’s not…" She struggles against him, movements weak and frantic. Her teary eyes lock onto her sister again, and she tries to reach out towards the still figure in the grass again. “It should’ve been me.”
Rage flares inside him. Jumping infront of Tommy’s axe to save Ziggy was instinctual. So is this: “Cindy’s going to be fine!”
Anguish-filled eyes meet his determined ones. "She's…gonna be okay?" A slither of hope peeks out from among the all-consuming grief as she stares tearfully at Cindy’s blood-streaked face before turning her watery gaze back to him. “She’ll be okay?” she whispers, voice so fragile, as if his answer possessed the power to shatter her soul into so many pieces that neither the Devil or any higher power can ever hope to find and meld back together.
Sighing heavily, Nick nods, fingers grazing against her quivering lips. "You're fine, right? You’re alright, aren’t you?”
Her brows knit, confusion mingling with heartache. "Yeah...but—"
“She’ll be fine too then,” he assures with every fiber of his being. “Everyone will be here soon. The cops…the first responders…everyone.” Kurt and Will may be less than dependable following orders. But Becky, Annie, the surviving Shadysiders, they would've called the cops. Their parents. Reporters. Especially with Sheila also left behind. "They’ll take you and Cindy to the hospita—”
“Hospital?” He sees a flicker of fear. Recalls Ziggy mentioning breaking her arm from trying to climb Mr.Corckle's tree, ending up with an infection on her right foot after visiting the hospital. “Thank God for Nurse Lane. Next time, just let me bleed to death rather than drag me to the hospital.”
“Sunnyvale Hospital,” Nick emphasizes, not East Union Medical with its flickering lights and doctors with a less than stellar record of healing. “You’ll go to Sunnyvale Hospital,” he repeats. “Best healthcare. Best doctors in the whole country. Maybe even the world. It sounds like a bullshit sales pitch,” he chuckles slightly. “But it’s true. You'll be in good hands. Both of you.”
He relaxes when Ziggy’s broken sobs dwindle into sniffles; her tense shoulders relax slightly but frowns when he notices the bruises on her neck.
Was it the Milkman…Tommy…Billy?
His eyes snap to the now blood-soaked bandage wrapped around her arm and narrow into slits.
Sheila.
He promised Cindy isn't dying tonight. But Sheila definitely is. And Will too, if Sheila isn't enough to save Cindy Berman.
He runs a hand over Ziggy’s hair and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. “Let me check on Cindy before they get here. You just stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Ziggy's throat bobs and she gives a wobbly nod. “Okay.”
He clasps her hands and presses a kiss to her bruised knuckle before he musters every scrap of willpower to rip himself away.
Her hand never stops reaching for Cindy as Nick shuffles towards the older Berman sister. His fellow Nightwing counselor…his fellow trainee in the CPR and First Aid Certification Course. His soon-to-be sister—
Nick freezes mid-crawl.
Future sister-in-law.
Very far-off-in-the-future sister-in-law.
Annoyance pricks him for an unexplainable reason as he slowly crawls forward.