Chapter Text
Wednesday’s POV
If anyone had asked me two years ago what my life would become, I might have answered with the same grim certainty I reserve for death: inevitable, predictable, and largely unremarkable. I was wrong. Everything changed that night.
The collision was not simply of metal and glass but of fate, bone, and memory. I’ve been told I should be grateful to have survived. I find gratitude to be a weak emotion, but I will concede this much: the impact rearranged more than the world around me. It rearranged me.
There is no going back. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. Still, the past insists on being exhumed. So let me tell you my story. Or rather, the story as they remember it.
…
Late afternoon bleeds through the stained-glass windows of Ophelia Hall, turning my room into a cathedral of dying light. Red and violet panes dissect the air, casting patterns across the floor. I find it comforting. The day’s last breath always feels like an omen trying too hard to be poetic.
Tyler insists on disturbing the stillness. He is stretched across my bed, one arm crooked behind his head, his boots with mud still clinging to them carelessly edging over the black coverlet Enid says makes my room “unapproachably morbid”. I told her that was the point. Tyler, however, appears immune.
I keep my focus on the typewriter. The rhythm of the keys is sharp, methodical, and merciless. It soothes me in the way small acts of control often do. I am dissecting an essay on 17th-century funeral rituals, a topic that holds far more warmth for me.
“Do you ever stop writing?” Tyler asks, his voice folded with amusement and the faintest trace of challenge.
“Only when rigour mortis renders it impossible,” I answer.
He laughs, that light, irreverent sound that manages to irritate me precisely because it does not irritate me enough. “Most girlfriends would take that as a cue to talk.”
I allow a thin pause before looking at him. “Most girlfriends”, I reply, “confuse communication with meaning. I prefer silence; it rarely lies.”
“Good thing I’m fluent in silence, then,” he says, grinning.
“Doubtful. You strike me as conversationally terminal.”
He swings his legs over the side of the bed and rises, approaching with the unhurried confidence of someone who hasn’t yet learnt to fear consequences. The air shifts; dust motes drift like ghosts between us. “Tell me something true, then,’’ he says.
I tilt my head. “Very well. You are infuriatingly persistent.”
He smiles. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“And yet,” he murmurs, stepping closer, “here I am.”
There’s a particular gravity that develops in moments like this. It’s an invisible line stretched taut between morbidity and sentiment. I dislike it, but I don’t step away. His hand lifts, fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face with exaggerated caution, as if expecting to lose them in the attempt.
“Careful,” I warn. “Touching me without permission often ends poorly for the perpetrator.”
“Then I’ll risk poetic mutilation.”
I arch a brow. “Your bravery would be more impressive if it weren’t so stupid.”
“Maybe.” His voice softens. “But it’s real.”
For a heartbeat, the room was still. I hear the ticking clock, the sighing window, and the distance I insist on keeping. All of it collapses into the electric hum of proximity. I can smell his cologne, faintly sweet, entirely human.
“You should go,” I say at last. “Curfew approaches, and Weems enjoys collecting reasons to lecture me about propriety.”
“Do you want me to go?”
The question lingers, infuriatingly alive. I allow myself one slow breath before answering. “Desire is a weakness I prefer to catalogue, not indulge. But…” I close the typewriter’s cover with a decisive click. “I will see you tonight…for our own non-date date.”
His mouth curves. “Non-date date. Right. Wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.”
“My reputation is unkillable. Unlike you.”
He laughs again, softer this time. “You know, you almost sound like you’re looking forward to it.”
“I’m looking forward to potential catastrophe. You just happen to be involved.”
He shakes his head, still smiling, and moves toward the door. “You’re impossible, Wednesday.”
“I strive for consistency.”
When the door closes, the silence returns. The last trace of sunset withdraws from the room, leaving only the lamp’s pale glow and the steady rhythm of my pulse.
I sit again at the desk, but my fingers hesitate above the keys. The page remains blank, waiting for the words that don’t come.
…
The evening seeps in through the cracked window like smoke from a dying candle. I’ve been pretending to read The Anatomy of Melancholy for the past hour, but in truth I’m listening to the wind scratching against the glass, to the faint laughter of students in the courtyard below, and to the growing impatience that I refuse to call anticipation.
He’s late. Typical of someone who believes time forgives those with dimples.
A knock interrupts the thought. Three deliberate taps. He’s learnt not to use four; I once told him that was the rhythm of a coffin lid closing.
I open the door to find Tyler standing there, hair damp from the rain that has begun to mist over Nevermore’s spires. In his hand, he holds a small bouquet of dead flowers. They are wilted roses, blackened daisies, and a sprig of something unidentifiable that looks convincingly poisonous.
I arch a brow. “You’ve brought me corpses.”
He grins. “Figured you’d prefer them that way. Less screaming involved.”
A flicker of something dangerously close to amusement tugs at my mouth. “They are acceptable. I’ll keep them until the smell becomes interesting.”
“High praise from you.”
He offers his arm in exaggerated chivalry. “Shall we, Miss Addams?”
“Only if the evening promises misery.”
“I think you’ll be impressed.”
We step out into the corridor. The light flickers as if conspiring with him. His boots echo beside mine on the stone floor; each footfall feels like punctuation.
Outside, the air is crisp, saturated with the metallic scent of oncoming rain. The woods around Nevermore loom, and the parking lot below glistens faintly under the first drops. Tyler leads the way to his car. It’s a battered black Jeep whose engine coughs like an asthmatic beast but refuses to die. I appreciate the symmetry.
I slide into the passenger seat. The seatbelt groans as I fasten it. “If this is another attempt to convince me that I enjoy human recreation, abandon hope now.”
He starts the car, the wipers squeaking once across the windscreen. “Trust me, it’s not dinner or dancing. You’d hate both.”
“I already do.”
He shoots me a quick glance, a half-smile forming. “Good. Then you’ll love this.”
We drive through the gates, the tyres hissing over the wet road. The forest swallows us almost immediately; the trees knit together overhead, their bare branches like ribs closing around a heart. The headlights carve out pale corridors between trunks. I can feel the hum of the engine under my boots.
After a few minutes I speak, mostly to fill the silence before he does. “If you’re planning a surprise, I should warn you. I’m immune to them.”
“That’s fine,” he says, eyes on the road. “This one’s for me too.”
I turn toward him. “That sounds ominous. Proceed.”
He gestures ahead, where the road bends toward a clearing I recognise only from rumours: the abandoned Jericho cemetery. The gates, twisted iron and ivy, stand ajar as if expecting us.
A slow, involuntary smile ghosts across my face. “You took me to a graveyard.”
He shrugs. “You once said nothing restores your faith in humanity like a burial ground.”
“Correct. It’s proof that even the worst people eventually stop talking.”
He parks near the entrance, engine idling. Rain patters harder now, whispering against the windscreen. “Come on,” he says. “There’s more.”
I study him a moment. The water is collecting on his jacket; the nervous pride in his eyes decides, reluctantly, that curiosity is a reasonable sin.
We step out into the drizzle. The air smells of wet stone and decay. Tyler opens the back of the Jeep and pulls out two thermoses and a folded blanket.
“Tea?” he offers. “Or whatever this is. It’s black, bitter, and might technically qualify as poison.”
“Delightful.” I accept the cup.
He spreads the blanket on the low wall beside an angel whose face has eroded into something expressionless. We sit. The rain hisses through the trees; thunder mutters somewhere distant.
I sip the drink. It’s vile, which pleases me. I glance around the rows of leaning headstones. “You’ve succeeded,” I say at last. “A non-date worth remembering. Tragic, atmospheric, potentially haunted. It’s almost… perfect.”
“Almost?”
I meet his gaze. “No one’s died yet.”
He laughs quietly. “Give it time, Wednesday.”
I look back at the graves, where the mist curls between stones like breath that refuses to fade, and for once, I allow the corners of my mouth to turn upward.
…
The rain has softened to a fine mist. The cemetery is quiet but not silent. There’s always noise if you know where to find it. The wind sighs through the trees, the leaves murmur, and somewhere beneath us, time ticks away in bone and soil.
Tyler’s cup steams in the half-light. “You know,” he says, “I was thinking about the first time I saw you. Back at the Weathervane.”
I hum. “You were malfunctioning, as usual.”
He laughs. “The espresso machine was. I just happened to be near it.”
“You were panicking,” I correct. “Steam, sparks, chaos. It was poetic. I felt morally obligated to intervene.’’
“You kicked the machine.”
“Precisely. Violence often encourages obedience. It worked, didn’t it?”
He nods, smiling into his cup. “Yeah. It did. You fixed it in, like, five seconds. I think I knew right then that I was in trouble.”
I turn my gaze toward him, expression cool and unamused, though I can feel the smallest quirk at the corner of my mouth. “Trouble is the only worthwhile state of being. Anything less is mediocrity.”
He tilts his head. “You really think that?”
“I know that. People who live without consequence are simply waiting to be forgotten.” I glance back at the gravestones. “At least trouble leaves a mark.”
He’s quiet for a while. The rain thickens, soft against the stone angel watching over us. When he finally speaks again, his tone has shifted. “Do you ever think about that time… before? When Thornhill had control?”
I take a slow sip of the tea. The taste is still dreadful. I answer without hesitation. “I think about it often. It was a period of useful suffering.”
He frowns. “Useful?”
“Pain is clarifying,” I say. “It strips away illusions and forces you to see the raw machinery underneath. I learnt then that forgiveness is not an instinct. It’s a decision. An unpleasant, conscious one.”
He studies me for a moment, then exhales. “I still don’t know how you forgave me.”
“I didn’t.” I meet his eyes. “I simply… continued. Which is far more interesting.”
He gives a soft, disbelieving laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You always have a way of making mercy sound terrifying.”
“It should be. Mercy without memory is delusion.”
He looks away, nodding. The sound of rain fills the silence again. Somewhere a crow calls once and then falls silent. When he finally speaks again, it’s quieter. “Sometimes I wonder what he’d think of all this. My dad.”
I consider the question. “The dead are rarely impressed by the living. But I suspect he’d prefer this version of you. The one that still chooses.”
He swallows hard. “He used to tell me that love isn’t about fixing people. It’s about seeing the worst parts and staying anyway.”
“That’s a revoltingly sentimental statement,” I say. “But not entirely inaccurate.”
He glances at me, smiling faintly. “So you’re staying?”
“For now.” I sip again. “Until you bore me or die tragically. Whichever arrives first.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “You’ve gotten better at this, you know. Talking about feelings without spontaneously combusting.”
“Contrary to rumour, I have never combusted spontaneously. Only deliberately.”
He laughs again, and the sound curls into the fog, warm and fleeting.
For a while, neither of us speaks. The mist thickens, the cemetery fades into shadows, and the thermos between my hands has long gone cold. Yet something about this moment feels suspended, like the world has briefly forgotten to turn.
I glance at him, studying the faint lines that exhaustion and guilt have carved near his eyes. We’ve been together for months now, long enough for the novelty to decay into something steadier, darker, and almost, though I loathe the word, comfortable.
“I find it fascinating,” I say quietly, “that we survived everything that was meant to destroy us. Thornhill’s manipulation. Your Hyde curse. My own compulsive indifference. Statistically, we should have imploded by now.”
“Maybe we did,” he says softly. “Maybe this is what’s left after the explosion.”
I look out toward the gravestones again, the mist curling between them like smoke over embers. “Then it’s a beautiful ruin.”
He reaches out, hesitates, and lets his fingers brush mine. I allow it. Only for a moment.
The sky rumbles above us, warning of heavier rain.
I stand. “We should go before the elements attempt to drown us. I’ve already died once today inside that tea.”
He grins, rising to his feet. “Back to Nevermore, then?”
…
The rain has matured into something less like weather and more like fury. Each drop slaps against the windscreen as if the sky itself disapproves of our existence. The wipers can barely keep up.
Tyler drives with both hands tight on the wheel, headlights slicing through sheets of water that turn the road into a mirror. The storm swallows the edges of the forest.
I’ve never minded storms. They remind me that nature can still be theatrical when it tries.
For a while, neither of us speaks. The radio hums a low, static-filled tune that sounds like something long dead trying to remember its melody.
Finally, Tyler glances at me. “You know, I used to hate nights like this.”
“Because they make you feel small?” I ask.
He smiles faintly. “Because they make everything else disappear. You can’t see the road ahead; you can’t see where you came from. It’s just you and whatever’s right in front of you.”
“That sounds efficient,” I say. “Most people spend their lives pretending they can see further than that.”
He laughs under his breath, eyes still on the road. The sound is quiet, honest. Then he adds, almost to himself, “I just… don’t mind it anymore. Not when you’re here.” The words hang there, absurdly simple, absurdly human.
I turn my head toward him, ready with some cutting remark to break the spell, but it doesn’t arrive. Instead I find myself watching the light from the dashboard flicker over his face, the way the storm paints him in motion: half shadow, half stubbornness.
Something unfamiliar presses against my ribs. I think it might be the heart trying to misbehave.
The traffic light ahead flicks from green to amber, then to red. Tyler eases the car to a stop. The wipers pause mid-arc, and for a second the world stills. There’s no thunder, no movement, only the sound of rain breathing against the glass.
He looks over, hesitant but certain all at once. “You know what’s strange?” he says quietly. “For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m someone’s mistake.”
It’s the kind of confession that should make me recoil. Instead, I study him. I see the sincerity, the quiet tragedy of someone who’s still learning to forgive his own reflection. My reply comes out softer than intended.
“Perhaps you’ve simply met someone who enjoys mistakes.”
His smile is small and genuine. “Lucky me, then.”
The light changes, but neither of us moves. The rain drums faster, thunder rolling somewhere over the hills.
I lean slightly closer, not out of impulse, but curiosity. His breath fogs the glass between us and the storm. The world smells of rain and engine oil and inevitability.
Without hesitation, I close the distance. It isn’t dramatic. There’s no sweeping music, no trembling hands, just a brief, deliberate press of lips, quiet and strange and exactly enough.
When I pull back, I say, “Consider that my moment of weakness for the decade.”
He exhales, a sound halfway between relief and disbelief. “I’ll take it.”
Outside, lightning flashes, bright and merciless, slicing through the rain. The light turns green. He shifts the car into gear.
…
The storm has stopped pretending to be dramatic and decided to be destructive. Rain sheets sideways across the windscreen, turning the world into a blur of silver veins. The wipers keep time like a metronome running out of patience. I find the chaos soothing; it makes the silence between Tyler and me feel almost deliberate.
The green traffic light ahead wavers through the downpour, a single unnatural glow in a sea of dark. Tyler’s hands are steady on the wheel, but I can feel the tension vibrating through him. The way a string hums right before it snaps.
“You drive like someone who believes the universe has a plan,” I say.
He glances over. “Doesn’t it?”
“The universe can barely keep itself from collapsing. It hardly has time to plan our evening commute.”
He smiles, eyes back on the road. The light turns yellow. “Then we’ll make our own plan.”
Suddenly I see white headlights too close in the corner of my vision. A truck barrels through the intersection, ignoring the red as though rules are a suggestion whispered to lesser mortals. Tyler’s foot slams the brake. Rubber shrieks.
There’s a huge impact. The sound is absolute. A crash so loud it swallows its own echo. The world jerks sideways; gravity forgets its duties. My seatbelt catches for an instant, then the world tilts again. Glass erupts around me like icy rain.
For a heartbeat, I register only fragments: light shattering into a thousand pieces, the steering wheel surging forward, and Tyler’s name somewhere in my throat but never leaving it.
Then stillness. A hiss from the radiator. The smell of metal and smoke. The rain continues, calm and cruel, seeping in through cracks that didn’t exist a moment ago.
I try to breathe. The air tastes of rust and cold. The side window is gone, replaced by a mosaic of glittering shards clinging stubbornly to the frame. They reflect flashes of red from the truck’s hazard lights, little stars that shouldn’t be here.
Somewhere to my left, Tyler slumps forward, motionless. I can see the faint rise and fall of his shoulder. Relief arrives too slowly to be useful.
I move or try to. Every small motion feels distant, as if the commands have to cross miles to reach me. There’s a dull sting along my arm where the glass kissed skin, but it’s muted, almost polite. The mind notices before the body bothers to complain.
Outside, a voice breaks through the storm. A man shouting. “Oh God…hey! Can you hear me? Stay still! I’m calling for help!”
The words float in and out, distorted by rain and fear. 911. Accident. Stay with me.
My head lolls to the side; the world smears into light and shadow. I catch a glimpse of the bouquet of dead flowers on the floorboard. It’s still intact, petals damp but unbroken. Typical. The only survivors are already deceased.
The sirens begin far off, a thin wail threading through the storm. I focus on the sound because it’s easier than thinking about what comes next.
I blink once, slowly. The edges of the world start to dissolve, colours draining away until there’s only the rhythmic flash of emergency lights reflecting on the glass.
If this is the end, it’s quieter than I expected. Almost civil. And then everything folds in on itself. The storm, the light, the sound until I am no longer part of it.
…
Tyler’s POV
I wake to noise before I wake to light. I hear a steady beeping, soft voices, and the hiss of something mechanical keeping its rhythm better than I can keep mine. The air smells like bleach and metal.
I blink against the brightness until shapes start making sense: ceiling tiles, pale walls, a curtain half-drawn. Everything is too clean, too still. For a second I think I’m dreaming, because dreams are the only places where nothing hurts at first.
Then the pounding in my skull reminds me otherwise.
“Hey, easy,” a nurse says. Her face leans into focus. She has kind eyes, hair pulled tight, and the practiced calm of someone who’s seen too many versions of panic. “You’re at Jericho General. You were in an accident, but you’re going to be fine. Some bruising, a mild concussion. You got lucky.”
Lucky. The word scrapes across me like broken glass. I try to speak, but my mouth feels full of dust. “Accident?”
She nods. “Car crash on Route 9. Your vehicle took most of the impact. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
Her voice fades under the rush of a different noise. I remember the rain, headlights, and the flash of white that swallowed the road. My chest tightens. There was someone else in the car.
“Where’s Wednesday?” The name slips out rough, almost a plea.
The nurse stills, just for a breath. “Your girlfriend was brought in with you. She’s stable. The doctors are with her now.”
Stable. The kind of word hospitals use when they can’t promise anything.
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet. She’s still being monitored. Rest first, okay? I’ll let Dr Andrews know you’re awake.”
She adjusts the IV line and leaves me to the hum of the machines.
I stare at the ceiling and try to stitch the pieces together. The storm. The red light. Her turning toward me, calm even in chaos. Then the sound of metal folding, the world cracking in half.
My hands ache. There’s a bruise across my forearm, faint purple already rising through the skin. I flex my fingers, half-expecting to feel her hand there, half-afraid that I won’t.
“She’d hate this,” I whisper. “Being called stable.”
The monitor beside me answers with another indifferent beep.
When the nurse returns, she tells me they’re moving Wednesday to observation soon. I’ll get a few minutes with her once they finish running tests. She tells me again to rest.
Rest feels obscene. I turn my head toward the window instead. Morning is creeping over Jericho, pale and washed-out, the kind of light that pretends last night never happened. I watch it crawl up the horizon and think about how easily everything can vanish between one heartbeat and the next.
I remember her last words before the crash: “Consider that my moment of weakness for the decade.”
I almost laugh, but the sound catches in my throat. “Hang on, Wednesday,” I say quietly, to the glass, to the sky, to whatever still listens.
The machines keep their rhythm. And all I can do is wait.
…
The hours blur. Hospitals have a way of stretching time until it stops behaving like time at all. Just a series of fluorescent lights and footsteps in the hallway. Every sound repeats itself.
I must drift in and out because the nurse returns with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“You’re awake enough to walk?”
I nod before I think about it. My legs argue, but I stand anyway. The floor is cold through the thin socks they gave me. She loops a steadying arm near my elbow and leads me down the corridor.
The smell changes the farther we go: less bleach, more quiet.
When we stop outside a door, a man in a white coat steps forward. His face is kind. Doctors all learn that expression somewhere between medical school and heartbreak.
“Mr. Galpin?” he asks.
“Yeah.” My voice sounds smaller than I expect.
“I’m Dr Andrews. You were both brought in last night. You came out of it with minor injuries, but your girlfriend…” He hesitates not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he does. “She sustained a significant head trauma. We’ve placed her in a medically induced coma to reduce swelling and give her brain time to recover.”
The words don’t land all at once. They fall slowly, one after another, until they start to mean something. “A coma,” I repeat.
He nods. “She’s stable for now. That’s the good news. The next few days will tell us more.”
I press a hand to the back of my neck. “Will she wake up?”
“We expect so,” he says carefully. “But we can’t predict the outcome yet. There may be lingering effects…memory, cognition… it’s too early to know.”
Consequences. He doesn’t say the word, but it hangs there between us anyway.
The nurse glances at me, quiet permission in her eyes. “You can go in for a few minutes. She won’t know you’re there, but sometimes people hear more than we think.”
I nod. I don’t trust my voice.
The door opens with a soft hiss, and the room feels colder than the hallway, like all the heat has been drained to keep the machines comfortable. Wednesday lies motionless against white sheets that look wrong on her. It’s too clean, too kind. Her hair fans over the pillow in black ribbons. The monitors breathe for her, a steady mechanical lullaby.
I step closer, careful not to disturb anything, and study her face. She looks the same and not the same: still, but not resting. The bruise along her temple stands out against the pallor of her skin. I reach for her hand but stop just before touching.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “They told me you’re just… waiting. That you need time.”
The machines answer with their rhythm. I sit in the chair beside her bed. The words that come next feel clumsy, but saying nothing feels worse. “You’d hate this place,” I tell her. “Too bright. Too clean. The walls don’t even have the decency to be interesting.”
The rain outside taps against the window, soft and steady.
“You said you didn’t believe in fate,” I go on. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just bad timing with a sense of humour.”
Her hand is warm under mine when I finally let my fingers rest there. It’s the only thing that feels real. “Wake up when you’re ready,” I whisper. “I’ll be here.”
The monitor keeps its patient beat, unbothered, unstoppable.
I sit there, counting each one, pretending they’re all her heartbeats borrowed until she takes them back.
…
Days don’t pass in hospitals. They blur. I start counting them, then stop when I realise I’ve lost track somewhere around the second sunrise that looked exactly like the first. The light through the blinds changes, but everything else stays the same: the hum of the machines, the smell of disinfectant, and the way Wednesday doesn’t move.
They told me to go home. Twice. I told them no.
Now the nurses bring me coffee that tastes like melted plastic and leave extra blankets on the chair beside her bed. They’ve stopped arguing about visiting hours. I think they’ve decided I’m a piece of furniture.
I talk sometimes. Not because I think she can hear me, but because the silence is awful.
I tell her about the weather outside, about how the rain finally stopped but left Jericho grey and empty. I tell her Enid came by once, eyes red, clutching a bouquet of violets that looked almost alive. She couldn’t stay long; too much noise for someone like Wednesday.
I tell her I fixed the cracked frame of the photo on her nightstand. The one with both of us at the Rave’N, slightly out of focus, her eyes rolled halfway to heaven. I tell her I think that’s my favourite version of her, the one pretending not to enjoy herself.
Sometimes I read aloud from her notebook. I found it in her bag the night of the crash. The leather cover was scuffed, the corners bent. Her handwriting is sharp, surgical. There’s a line in there that keeps looping in my head: “Love is the most efficient form of cruelty. It makes people hope.”
Every time I read it, I imagine her smirking from somewhere just to see if I’ll disagree.
The doctors check in every morning. Their voices never change. Their cautious optimism was wrapped in scientific restraint. They tell me her vitals are strong, her body healing well. They use words like 'monitoring', 'stabilising' and 'waiting'. That last one’s my job.
Sometimes, when the night staff dims the lights and the hallways fall silent, I let myself drift half asleep in the chair beside her. The machines fade into the background until they sound almost like breathing. I keep my hand on hers, tracing patterns across her knuckles. The same way she used to trace coffee rings on the counter at the Weathervane.
It’s strange, the things you remember when everything else stops moving.
The smell of her perfume, faintly metallic, like rain on stone. The way she’d tilt her head before saying something that would either insult or intrigue you. Sometimes both. The sound of her cello leaking through her dorm window on nights she thought no one was listening.
Every time I look at her now, I try to imagine what she’d say if she woke up and found me like this. Probably something cutting and perfectly accurate. You look pathetic, Tyler. Like a wounded Labrador. And she’d be right.
But I’d still stay. Because leaving would feel like agreeing with the universe that this. her, we were just another accident waiting to be buried under paperwork and condolence cards.
I don’t know how many nights pass before the pattern breaks. The nurse wakes me with a hand on my shoulder and a whisper: “The doctor wants to see you.”
Her eyes are cautious, unreadable.
I look back at Wednesday before following her out of the room. She hasn’t moved. Not yet. But the faintest flicker of hope, stubborn and foolish, stirs anyway.
Because she’s Wednesday Addams, and if there’s one person who wouldn’t let a coma get the last word, it’s her.
…
The hallway outside Wednesday’s room feels different today. Quieter, but with an edge, like the air itself is waiting to see if it should hope or brace for disaster.
Dr Andrews stands near the nurses’ station, a folder in his hands. When he sees me, he gives the kind of half-smile doctors use when they’re about to say something that can go either way.
“Mr. Galpin,” he says, motioning me over. “I wanted to speak with you before we begin.”
“Begin what?” My voice comes out rough, the way it always does after too much coffee and too little sleep.
He glances down at the chart before meeting my eyes again. “The swelling in Miss Addams’s brain has decreased enough that we can start easing her out of the coma. It’s time.”
The words land slowly, too heavy to trust at first. “You mean…she’s waking up?”
“If all goes as expected, yes,” he answers. “We’ll reduce the medication over several hours and monitor her responses. It’s a gradual process.” He hesitates. “But I need you to understand. We don’t yet know what we’ll see when she wakes. It’s possible she may experience confusion, gaps in memory, and disorientation. Sometimes it resolves quickly; sometimes it takes longer.”
I swallow hard. “And if it doesn’t?”
He doesn’t flinch, just speaks quietly. “Then we help her relearn what she’s lost. One step at a time.”
The phrase 'one step at a time' sounds neat and manageable, but I can feel the weight underneath it. It’s the kind of line people say to make the impossible sound like a task list.
I nod anyway. “Can I be here?”
“Yes. She’ll need a familiar voice. Just don’t crowd her. Let her come back on her own terms.”
That last part makes me almost smile. If there’s anyone who has ever done anything on their own terms, it’s Wednesday.
The doctor moves away to prepare, leaving me standing in the dim hallway. I press a hand against the wall, trying to steady the adrenaline that’s already humming through me.
When I step back into her room, everything looks the same, but it feels different. It feels charged, expectant. The machines still hum, but now they sound like a countdown. I pull the chair close again and take her hand, careful of the IV lines.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice catching a little. “They say it’s time. I know you hate being told what to do, but this is one order I hope you’ll ignore if you want to. You can wake up when you’re ready.”
Her fingers don’t move, but I keep talking nonsense, really. Anything to fill the space between heartbeats.
I tell her the rain finally stopped, that the cemetery washed clean and smells like iron again. I tell her Enid’s threatening to redecorate her dorm, which I’m sure will be her incentive to return.
After a while, Dr Andrews and a nurse come in, checking monitors and adjusting something on the IV. “We’re starting now,” he says softly. “It may take some time.”
I nod, but I don’t look away from her face.
For the first time in days, I feel the smallest crack in the shell of exhaustion. It’s a thread of fear and a thread of hope twisted together.
I squeeze her hand gently and whisper, “Come back, Wednesday. You’ve kept death waiting long enough.”
The machines keep their steady rhythm, indifferent to everything but numbers.
I sit there, watching for the faintest sign that somewhere, behind those closed eyes, she’s starting to find her way back.
…
Wednesday’s POV
The first thing I notice is the sound. I hear a steady, irritating beeping. It’s mechanical proof that I’ve survived something I likely shouldn’t have.
The second is the light. It’s far too bright for comfort, slicing through my eyelids like interrogation lamps.
I open my eyes. The ceiling above me is blank, white, and institutional. The smell of antiseptic burns in my nose. Somewhere nearby, a machine exhales rhythmically. Like a ghost pretending to breathe for me. I’m in a hospital. I’ve read enough medical reports to know the atmosphere.
A man in a lab coat steps into view. His smile is that practised mixture of relief and caution reserved for people who wake up inconveniently alive. “Miss Addams? Can you hear me?”
I blink. “Regrettably.”
He exhales a quiet laugh of relief. “You’re at Jericho General Hospital. You were in a car accident a few days ago. You’ve been unconscious.”
A car accident. The words drift through the fog in my head, but they don’t stick anywhere. “That sounds bothersome,” I reply. “But I appear to be intact.”
“Mostly,” he says carefully. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Luck is a concept I don’t believe in. I prefer causality.”
The corner of his mouth twitches upward, amused, or maybe unsettled. Hard to tell.
Then, I suddenly see movement. Someone is standing by the door. It’s a boy, his posture uncertain, shoulders slumped as though gravity recently betrayed him. His hair is dishevelled, his clothes look slept in, and his eyes – those are what catch me. Wide, exhausted, too full of something I don’t recognise.
I frown. “Who is that?”
The doctor glances over his shoulder. “Ah. He’s been here since you were admitted.”
“Why?”
Before the doctor can answer, the boy takes a hesitant step forward. “Wednesday,” he says softly. My name sounds strange in his voice. It sounds reverent, careful. “You’re awake.”
I study him, expression neutral. “Obviously. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He stops, searching my face as though the answer to something vital might be hiding behind my eyes. “Do you…” He swallows, his voice breaking on the words. “Do you know who I am?”
I tilt my head, examining him the way I would an unfamiliar species. “No.”
That single syllable lands like a hammer in the quiet room. For a heartbeat, no one moves. The monitor beside me keeps its calm, steady rhythm, utterly indifferent to human emotion.
The boy’s expression falters. First confusion, then disbelief, and finally something I recognise all too well: loss. He doesn’t say anything else. He just turns away, shoulders trembling slightly, and walks out.
The door closes behind him with a dull thud that sounds heavier than it should.
I look at the doctor. “Should I know him?”
He hesitates. “He was in the accident with you. That’s all you need to think about right now.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you get today,” he replies gently. “You’ve had a head injury. Some temporary memory loss is normal. We’ll help you piece things back together.”
“Temporary,” I repeat. “An optimistic prognosis.”
He offers another one of those practiced smiles before checking my IV line. “Get some rest, Miss Addams. One step at a time.”
When he leaves, the silence settles again, heavy and absolute.
I stare at the door the boy, Tyler, I think I heard someone call him, walked through. Whoever he is, I suppose he matters. Just not to me.