Work Text:
"Oh!" Rosie said when she got the phone call. "Yes, of course."
The hospital had said they would call her when he was ready to be discharged, and sure enough, a few hours later, they said he could stay with her if she wanted to him to receive home care, or stay in the hospital a bit longer. It was up to her.
She told them she'd come pick him up right away.
"Rosie?" Alastor said when she picked him up. "I almost died, you know? I almost died," he said loopily, clearly high out of his mind on painkillers.
"Thank you for taking care of him," she told the staff. "I'll take it from here."
He didn't quite doze off in the car ride back to hers, but he didn't seem fully awake either.
She got him tucked into a bed in the guest room, and then he really did fall asleep.
Rosie decided, once it seemed like he was truly asleep and not just nodding off, to make herself useful and start preparing some of his favorite dishes, comfort food for when he woke up. No use sitting by his bed the entire time.
"Alastor?" she said with a knock on the door around dinner time.
A groggy "Mm?" came from behind the door.
"Can I come in? I brought you sinner noodle soup."
"Mhm."
By the time Rosie had opened the door, Alastor had pushed himself up to a seated position with his back against the cushions.
"You stay right there," Rosie said as Alastor opened his mouth. "Seeing as you almost died."
"I almost what?" Alastor said. "I certainly took more of a hit than I'd have cared to in my little scrap with Adam, but there's no need to be dramatic, dear," Alastor said, ignoring the twinging in his chest where the stitches pulled as he spoke.
"Ah," Rosie said and placed the food tray over his lap. So it was going to be like that.
She watched him pick up the spoon and bring it to his lips and wondered how much pain he was in. She weighed up how much it would wound his pride if she offered to feed him so he didn't aggravate the chest wound against the possibility that he'd never ask her to, even if he desperately needed it.
She'd wait. Maybe if he were in enough pain, he'd say "yes" the first time.
"How are you feeling, hun?" Rosie asked.
"Peachy," Alastor said. "Whatever they gave me in the hospital did the job alright!"
"Mm," Rosie hummed.
Maybe it was true. He had seemed to be on something strong when she picked him up.
"Really?" She asked, observing the tightness in his smile, in his whole upper body.
"…I may be coming down from whatever they gave me," Alastor admitted.
"Right. Well, you can't have any of the pills they gave me for another few hours," Rosie said. "Sorry."
"Mm," Alastor hummed something like an affirmative. "Duly noted, my dear, duly noted."
"Do you," Alastor said after a beat, in between slow spoonfuls of soup, "happen to know how I got to the hospital?"
"I… you didn't shadow there yourself?" Rosie asked.
"I… was indisposed, I believe," Alastor said delicately.
You don't know how you got to the hospital, and you're saying you didn't almost die?!
"You don't remember?" Rosie asked to confirm.
"I imagine one of yours carted me off! Or perhaps one of Little Miss Bleeding Heart's bunch," Alastor said in a way Rosie couldn't help but find flippant.
"Mm. Maybe," Rosie said.
The staff hadn't mentioned it, when they discharged him. Maybe there was something odd to it, now that she thought about it, but it hadn't been top of her mind when she was there…
Maybe that was a problem, or a… something for another day.
It was when he stopped eating that Rosie took the opportunity to pick up the spoon wordlessly to get him through the rest of the soup.
Alastor abhorred it. It made him feel weaker and more vulnerable than a child. He wanted to fight her on it, wanted to grab the spoon from her fingers— but he didn't. His chest hurt and this was, if not an entirely welcome relief, relief.
So he just sat there, trying not to move too much, letting her spoonfeed him in the literal sense of the word.
He hated it. He made sure his face and body projected a picture of placidity.
While Rosie wasn't exactly privy to all of that, she knew it had to be bad indeed if he was letting her do this for him.
"I'll be back," Rosie said, catching the hint of strain in his smile, of worry in his face as she picked up the tray with the now empty bowl of soup. She said it evenly, with no mention of that flicker of anxiety.
Alastor relaxed. It was subtle, but it was there.
She came back after doing the washing up, pulled the armchair to the side of his bed, and sat down.
"How are you feeling?"
"You already asked me that," Alastor replied.
"You just got out of the hospital!"
"Yes! And the doctors know well enough not to eat me!" Alastor answered haughtily. "I'm in tip-top shape, or will be very soon, thank you."
"I'm not saying you won't be!" Rosie answered, her own frustration coloring her voice. "I'm saying no-one knew where you were and then I found you in a hospital."
"Oh, please. Lots of people died. I," he said like it made it better, "lived."
He clearly meant to continue, but before he could go on, Rosie said "Yes! Lots of people died! Lots of my people died. And you," she said, pointing a finger at him, "nearly died too! You disappeared for seven years, and now you're back, and you nearly died just six months after getting back."
Alastor was just looking at her.
"You scared me," she said quietly. "I just got you back."
He still didn't say anything.
"And you're acting like nothing happened!"
Alastor wanted to angrily retort that nothing had happened: he was fine. He'd lived. He'd been discharged and the wound should heal fine.
He at least managed to take a breath and say it calmly (which was with still quite a lot of gusto, for the average person. He was at the very least trying not to aggravate his chest.)
"You still scared me," she said, her voice a little small.
"…I didn't mean to," was all Alastor could think to say that felt right.
"I know," Rosie said. She smoothed her palms down her skirt and said "I don't want to be mad at you" after a beat.
"For whatever it's worth, I don't want you to be mad at me either."
"Good to hear I'm still not on the list of people you like to torment," Rosie said with a small smile.
"No, just on the list of people I like."
"And who else is on that list?" Rosie asked with a bit of playfulness in her voice.
"It's rather small, really. Hardly a list."
"Mm. Well, so long as I'm on it," Rosie said, still playing a bit.
"You are," Alastor said completely earnestly.
"You're still on mine," she said with a soft smile. "And that means I'm going to be royally angry if you disappear on me again, or if you keep acting like what happened- didn't happen."
He nodded in the quiet that fell between them.
"You almost died. You told me, when I picked you up, and you were probably drugged out of your mind, that you almost died."
"I did," Alastor said, small. "I did say that." He looked away from her. "And I did almost die."
"Thank you," Rosie said, allowing some tension to leave her body.
"I thought you were mad at me for it?" he joked.
She pushed him lightly and he hissed in pain.
"Right. Sorry. The thing we're talking about," Rosie apologized.
"The thing we're talking about," Alastor confirmed.
And all the things they weren't talking about: the seven year absence, where he'd gone, why he'd gone, and why he hadn't told her.
Why he had in fact almost died for the hotel, if he'd just been cornered and couldn't get away or if he'd really put almost everything on the line for "Little Miss Bleeding Heart"'s project.
But Rosie knew Alastor. If she pushed, he'd pull away.
He'd tell her if/when he was ready, likely in exchange for something else juicy or at least flattery to his ego.
She didn't have it in her right now to play that game anyway.
When he did eventually leave her guest room some weeks later, when the hotel had been partially rebuilt and he felt recovered enough to make a reappearance among his little hazbins, she still didn't know.
Well, now he owed her a personal favor, on top of the favor on behalf of the hotel.
Not that she or Alastor ever really "cashed them in" with each so much as they did a dance of offering something of value to the other in alternation, generally speaking. It wasn't not transactional, but it wasn't about one-to-one matches so much as reciprocity.
And it wouldn't do to rush her dance partner. The whole thing hung on a delicate balance of trust she wouldn't want to disturb.
Even if she'd thought… well, seven years ago, if you'd told her Alastor would be vanishing for that long without a word, she wouldn't have believed you.
"It was so nice to have you," Rosie said as she hugged him goodbye.
"Yes, well, guests and fish, and all that!" Alastor said brightly.
"I'm a butcher. I've smelled worse."
"I'll take your word for it," Alastor said.
"Don't be a stranger, ya hear?" Rosie said, squeezing his hands in hers before he walked out the door.
"Duly noted," he said, letting his smile turn just a little more genuine for her.
She watched him walk away through the window for a moment, then turned back to her own affairs.
He was back now. He wasn't going anywhere (probably).
She'd have him over for tea soon enough, and get the tea on the hotel's remodeling.
Things might be different, but they were going to be OK.