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One week ago Van woke up in the Zephyr’s infirmary as they raced back towards the Uplands. Her arm was gone, vaguely wrapped up in some blackened bandages. Comfrey was with her, not flying the ship. Blankets covered most of her. She hadn’t been awake for long. When she woke up again the next day it was in a hospital bed, groggy and high on pain medication.
At first she didn’t have the wherewithal to realise much about her condition. Her arm was gone, she knew that, and her head hurts very badly. That was essentially the quickest explanation of it, she believed. Her eyes flit around the room, Onion is asleep in the corner, Sylvio is standing by the door, Haunch is by the window, Comfrey in a chair right next to her. A groan slips from her lips at the blinding lights.
Comfrey responds to the sound immediately, body coiling up immediately, eyes meeting Van’s own. Comfrey’s hand comes to her face gently, brushing some hair off of her forehead. It’s nice, it’s so nice. Comfrey’s fingertips are cool and calming, and why does she feel so damn feverish? Van swallows her own saliva thickly, her throat feeling awfully dry. Comfrey moves quickly to grab a cup of water.
A hand slips beneath her head, metallic. Onion had moved up here at some point. He props her up gently, letting Comfrey gently tip some water into her mouth. It’s beautifully cold but her heart suddenly slams with fear at the feeling of it going down. Her chest spasms and sputters with a nasty cough at the panic, and she sees the others frown.
“Oh, Vanellope…”
Comfrey’s voice carries a deep heartbreak, the weight of guilt trying to trap the words in as her throat bobs. Van just watches her for a long moment, blinking owlishly at her. She feels Onion help adjust her better, settling her against the pillows gently, patting her back before pulling himself back a little.
“Gave us a real scare, Chapman.”
He smiles at her, not his usual confident smirk, but small and genuine. Van pulls a breath in, it felt like most of the air had been sucked from her lungs for days now. She holds the breath for a moment, letting it out. She tries to parse through her mind, trying to find what happened. Her arm is gone, she knows this. How did she lose it, again? What happened? There was water, she thinks.
“What happened? I don’t… I know there was an accident but I don’t…”
The words don’t come out quite right, jumbled up and staccato. God, her chest feels so tight, like she needs to stretch her whole body out to try and pop everything back into place. Everyone in the room looks to each other with worry, and that’s a bad sign if there ever was one. Sylvio stands up from where he had leaned against the door and walks over to the foot of her bed, gangly fingers on the frame.
“We were in a battle with a fearsome monster and you fell from the ship into the ocean. Your arm was injured beyond saving and the Chapman curse was beginning to take you.”
Her chest seizes again, and she looks to her arm. The stump that remains. A belt is tied around it, and she can see the slightly squirmings of black inkyness under her skin. Van feels her stomach churn and quickly tugs her eyes away. She can’t look at that, can’t think about it. It was good that it hadn’t taken over, but there is a sting in her chest at that. The first Chapman to escape the curse, or to at least not be entirely taken by it.
“I… Thank you, for stopping it… I…”
Van feels the burn of tears in her eyes, and instinctively tries to curl up the way she used to when she was a very little kid. Her knees do not move. Her legs overall do not move. She cannot get them to come to her chest in the way she was used to. That was odd. She tries again. Again. Again.
“Why can’t I- Why can’t I move my legs? Comfrey, why can’t I move my legs?”
Why she directs the question only to Comfrey she doesn’t know. Again. Again. Again. If she keeps trying it will work because it has to work. She’s a Chapman, a wind-rider. This can’t happen to her, it surely can’t. She watches Comfrey’s lip wobble, watches the older woman barely hold back a pained noise. No.
“You had a nasty fall, Vanellope… The adrenaline after the initial fall got you to power through it, but your spine was badly damaged.”
No. Absolutely not. Comfrey has to be lying. Comfrey is good at lying so she has to be lying and this is all some sick prank. There is no way in hell this has happened to her. What good is she to anyone now? It would be different if her job on the ship wasn’t the bosun, if she wasn’t so reliant on brute force. It would be different if her job at the Nut wasn’t to haul heavy crates and lift them to high shelves.
“It’s reversible. You will walk again, Vanellope. You will. It will just… take a while.”
“A while? How long- I- I mean we were so close to finding Zood we just-”
“Forget about Zood, Van! God, Zood doesn’t matter, you almost died!”
Van tenses her jaw, muscles flexing. There are very few things she never thought she’d hear Comfrey say, but she had managed to find one. Zood doesn’t matter. Zood was everything to Comfrey. They’d flown into that storm because she said they were close, Van came back from a more comfortable life to support her in finding Zood.
Comfrey sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb, massaging a stressed crease. Silence ripples over the room for a few seconds, none of the guys daring to speak at this moment.
“Look, I know this is difficult, Van. I know. And I’m sorry that I-... I’m sorry. I am going to do everything in my power to help you. I promise.”
Comfrey’s hands are on Van’s singular one now. Cold, grounding. It doesn’t erase any of this, barely helps all that much at all, but it’s something to work with. Something gentle and physical. She can’t look Comfrey in the eye because she sees the self-hatred reflected. Sees a guilt older than Comfrey herself weighing her down. A guilt she herself has felt all her life too, something always there, in the back of your mind, waiting. Prowling. Knowing one day it will come to fruition.
“I will do everything I can.”