o48

After the Storm

The back of Hei’s head hurt when she woke up, and it was the only thing she could focus on in the darkness. She knew her eyes were closed, but they felt painfully heavy, and the last thing she wanted to do was wake up. Apart from the pain in the back of her skull, the pounding in her ears, everything else was comfortable. And she was pretty sure that nothing had been comfortable when she had passed out, whenever and however that happened.

The bed underneath her was soft and warm and familiar—Baekhyun’s cabin, she deduced sluggishly—and when she concentrated on it, various parts of her body ached. But it was the sting of a wound that had been already treated, more a dull ache than the burning pain she vaguely remembered.

Hei shifted, and a jolt of pain went up her wrist. The pain seemed to break the dam, and all of a sudden, everything that had happened before she passed out seemed to flood back.

She opened her eyes, another wave of panicked realization settling in.

The room was just as she remembered it. She was safe—a strange concept, given the last thing she remembered was the burning ship, Junsu, Jinqiong knocking her out—

Hei sat up—or, tried to sit up—because she didn’t get far. Then she saw the mop of black hair at the side of the bed, the sight strangely familiar to one Hei could remember from many times before. She would have laughed if her body didn’t ache so much, or if it were the fact that she remembered Jinqiong sending her and Jungwoo off alone while she faced Junsu—

At that moment, Baekhyun lifted his head, blinking groggily at her. Hei, barely able to sit up, stared back, the situation still sinking in.

His eyes widened as well. “You’re awake,” he breathed.

Hei looked around the room. The lantern was burning steadily in the corner of his desk, so Baekhyun couldn’t have been sleeping for long. She was cleaned up, however—the chains around her wrists were gone, replaced by clean, white bandages, and she had been changed out of the torn coat and bloodied dress into a clean shirt.

“Is Jinqiong—” she started, but Baekhyun had already moved to crush her in a tight hug.

For a second, Hei didn’t move, too surprised to react. Then, slowly (after the initial pain faded), she let herself ease into his grip. There were still many questions, but for the moment, everything felt fine just being next to him. All the terror of being trapped in that room for days, with what had happened with Jungwoo and Junsu and Jinqiong and that moment when she had nearly slit her own throat at his command—everything came crashing down, and she buried her head in Baekhyun’s shoulder and let out a long, shaky breath.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he mumbled. “You nearly…”

Hei untangled him gently from her. The bandages around her wrists were tight enough to provide support, even if the movement hurt. Her shoulders, as well, ached. There felt like there were injuries everywhere. There might’ve been—she didn’t know.

Baekhyun’s face was ashen when Hei pulled back to look at him. She was pretty sure he hadn’t slept much, if he’d slept at all, which also begged the question of how long she had been unconscious for. Then there was also Jinqiong, and the fact that Baekhyun hadn’t answered the question brought a whole onslaught of terrible possibilities.

“Is Jinqiong okay?” Hei asked. hurt. Her head hurt. Everything hurt, and she focussed on the familiar grip around her arms, carefully gentle.

“Depends on how you define okay,” he replied shakily. “Junmyeon brought her and Jongdae back. They’re both pretty injured. But they’re alive.”

Jinqiong was alive. “Junsu?”

“Gone. Luhan’s thing with the gem worked.”

Hei let out another long breath. Everyone was fine. Jinqiong was fine (she had no idea why Jongdae was there, but Baekhyun didn’t look like he was in the position to answer more questions). She leaned back on the headboard. “Everyone is fine?”

“Hei,” Baekhyun said softly, “everyone is fine. The—the baby’s fine as well. Yuxuan confirmed.”

She nodded slowly. The relief was too sudden to begin to click. “Okay.”

“Not okay,” Baekhyun countered. The bed dipped when he moved to sit closer. “Do you know how terrifying those three days were? None of us knew what Junsu would do to you. No one knew if you were even alive. And when Jungwoo came out from a burning ship carrying you, I thought you were dead.”

Hei glanced down at the bandages. A couple peeked from her shoulder, where the two whip lashes were. Then her wrists, and part of her arm. And… her neck, where there was a thin line of where she had cut herself. It could’ve been much deeper. Or fatal. So many what-ifs and ways the situation could’ve gone awry.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back. “I just…”

Baekhyun reached over and pulled her into another hug. Hei could feel her eyes watering. She had wanted to be back here—somewhere safe, somewhere familiar—for the longest time, but now that she was back and safe, all she could think about was what had happened. Baekhyun was right. It had been bad, but it could’ve been worse, and what had happened and what could’ve happened was all too prominent.

He rubbed soothing circles down her back, and Hei let herself relax, taking deep breaths to calm herself. Her eyes still stung.

When she was sure she wouldn’t start crying again, she mumbled, “Jinqiong saved me.”

Baekhyun’s reply took a couple of seconds. “You saved all of us.”

“I didn’t do that—”

“Sweetheart, none of this would’ve worked if you hadn’t convinced Jungwoo,” he said. Hei reluctantly let Baekhyun pull away so he could look at her. “Or if you hadn’t gotten Junsu’s guard down. Who knows where we would be now? When we checked the map of Hell’s Gate, the whole area around here is covered by the second sector. We either would’ve been taken captive by Junsu then delivered to my father, or we would’ve sailed right into a death trap. None of us would’ve made it out.”

It didn’t feel like she had done anything, or played any contribution. Jinqiong had taken the brunt of everything—while she had been knocked out cold for the rest of it. Even though Hei knew Baekhyun was technically right, it didn’t seem like anything.

It took Hei a couple moments to realize what he’d called her, and then a couple more for the realization to sink in. She blinked at Baekhyun. “You called me sweetheart,” she said.

Baekhyun looked confused for a moment before he raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you got from that?”

“You haven’t called me that since… your father.”

Slowly, he began to smile at her. “It just slipped out.”

His smile was as contagious as ever, and she found herself grinning back at him. “I guess I’ll be putting up with your nicknames again.”

Mood now better, Baekhyun rolled his eyes at her. “You probably want food and something to drink,” he said. “Jungwoo said he gave you water and food, but I doubt he gave you enough. And then we need to meet with the rest of the crew. We still have a couple of things we need to deal with.”

Hei sat up. “What do you mean? Is something else wrong?”

Baekhyun shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong,” he replied. “Just that Luhan couldn’t use the gem on Taeyong without your help. He ended up severing the ties from the gem to Junsu, which is what killed him, but in order to free Taeyong, we might need your power. It’s not that big of a deal. Everything…” He seemed to search for the right word, then gave up, “Everything else is over.”

Strange to think that freeing Taeyong was the least of their problems, but it was relieving. There were no other hiccups over the way, nothing from stopping them—even the journey back from Hell’s Gate didn’t seem as daunting as it would’ve been. There was always the possibility that Taeyong wouldn’t cooperate, or something else would go wrong there, or perhaps he was just as unstable as Junsu—but all those possibilities and Hei still couldn’t bring herself to worry.

Baekhyun must’ve seen the expression on her face because he leaned forward, a smile beginning to tug at his lips. “Rest up,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere until you’re more healed. We have time now.”

Hei sat up a bit. The effort sent her head spinning, and concerned, Baekhyun steadied her again. “Hey,” he warned, “careful. I need to get food for you.”

“Can I see Jinqiong and Jongdae?” Hei blurted instead. “And Jungwoo?”

He raised his hands in mock-surrender. “I doubt Jinqiong and Jongdae will be able to make it up so many flights of stairs just yet. And you probably shouldn’t go down.” He must’ve seen her expression, because he gave her a gentle but firm push back onto the bed. “I can bring Jungwoo in, but after you eat and drink water, and let me change bandages. Then yes.”

Everything still hurt and there was lingering terror that Hei was unable to shrug off, but she found herself beaming at him. “Deal.” 

***

Jinqiong slept for sixteen hours straight, and despite the fact that she was sporting a couple of broken bones and more wounds and injuries she could count. Yuxuan and Yixing had worked collectively to bandage everything, although the girl was too exhausted to fully heal any of the wounds. She was informed the broken ribs were mended (they were still sore, but definitely a significant amount better than before) and her wrist was completely back to normal. There was nothing more Yuxuan could do for the other wounds except bandage them after smearing a green-looking poultice over the cuts, but the fact that they were clean and bandaged was already a huge relief.

Everything was a blur. Jinqiong remembered Junmyeon bringing her and Jongdae down to Yuxuan and Yixing, but everything was a haze of cold and pain and confusion, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had happened. Thinking back, Jinqiong wasn’t even sure if she had gotten to her room and then passed out, or passed out first. She remembered asking about Hei and getting some sort of answer, but couldn’t quite place just what the answer had been.

For a long time, she lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling and letting everything fall into place. There was Junsu—gone, now, and Jinqiong’s best guess was that the gem had been used on Taeyong—then there was Jongdae, and for some reason, that was the biggest problem her mind wanted to dwell on. Or perhaps problem wasn’t the right word, because it wasn’t a problem but more of problem solved, and the fact that it was didn’t quite make sense to her in such a state. Jinqiong turned everything over in her head for another two minutes or so before finally sitting up.

Immediately, the muted pain turned full blown, and Jinqiong winced. Every muscle in her body seemed to be straining at just the effort of sitting up, but slowly and very painfully, she forced herself into an upright position.

Jinqiong wasn’t sure if she could make it to the door, but her stomach was growling and was parched. After a couple moments of contemplation, she tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed, then winced as another wave of pain flared in her chest.

She sat back on the bed.

Apparently getting up wasn’t an option. A bit irritated, Jinqiong rolled her wrist—it was completely healed, although perhaps a little stiff --and tried to take a slightly deeper breath than before. It was followed by the same sort of pain.

Jongdae’s cabin was right beside hers, she reasoned. If she wanted to get out or get food or even water, she’d have to alert someone, which didn’t seem possible given that she could barely get up, and the last thing she wanted to do was inconvenience someone yet again. Still, sitting around didn’t feel like an option either, so—

There was a knock on her door. Before Jinqiong could say another word, the door swung open and someone held a lantern inside. Baekhyun’s head followed.

Jinqiong stared at him. Out of everyone she expected to see, Baekhyun was the last person.

His gaze landed on her. “You’re awake,” he said.

Jinqiong took a deep breath before remembering that her ribs were still broken. “Yeah,” she managed. She wanted to say something else—most likely some remark that he’d been wrong, that she’d saved Hei in the end and he had been wrong, but nothing came to mind. She hadn’t done it to prove a point to Byun Baekhyun, or to herself.

“I…” Baekhyun glanced at her room, lips pressed in a line. Jinqiong had trouble figuring out if his expression was disapproving or perhaps… nervous? “Can I come inside?”

Maybe nervous wasn’t too far of a stretch if he was asking for permission. She gestured at the door. “Go ahead.”

Baekhyun ran his hand through his hair, eyes flitting (definitely nervous), before opening the door wider and stepping inside. The flames from the lantern flickered around the room as he set it down on the small table, then took a seat on one of the chairs. “Hei’s awake,” he said as he settled down. “Although Yixing said it’s probably best to keep her on bedrest for another day or two. Jongdae’s fine as well.”

Jinqiong eyed him. “Are you here to visit me, then?”

He finally met her eyes squarely. Jinqiong felt half-compelled to look away, but she let herself hold his gaze for a couple seconds more until Baekhyun looked down. He pulled something out of his coat and laid it on the bed. “These are yours,” he said.

Jinqiong frowned at the bundle of cloth that laid in front of her. When she didn’t make a move for it, Baekhyun jerked his chin at the thing. “I’m not trying to kill you,” he said, a bit of the old irritability slipping into his voice. “Just open it.”

Jinqiong picked it up gingerly, though she didn’t have to unwrap the cloth to know what it was. There was the familiar grip of her handle—two, actually—and then she shifted to the cloth to see the lantern glint off her daggers. Both of them had been cleaned of any traces of blood.

The last time Jinqiong had used them… she wasn’t sure, but she had the brief recollection of leaving the dagger when Junmyeon had brought them back, then the other either buried in the wreckage (which was probably now at the bottom of the sea) or dropped when she had been struggling with Junsu under the water. Still stiff, she set the blades aside and looked back up at Baekhyun. “Where did you find them?”

“One was on the ice,” he replied. “Which, by the way, is going to take a long time to clear. We might need your help once you’re more healed, because Chanyeol isn’t enough. The other dagger was at the bottom of the sea.”

“The sea,” she echoed, for once lost for words. It made sense, given that Jinqiong was almost positive it had probably gone down with the wreckage, but that meant Baekhyun had taken the time and effort—despite the aftermath—to fish her daggers out of the wreckage. Or