This Doesn't Feel Real [closed]

[chase_em]

It had been a little less than a week since his mother was attacked. The best and most attentive Healers were at her side day and night, new Potions hooked up to her veins every two hours, keeping her stable but the wounds weren't yet close to fixing themselves. It was frustrating and terrifying, Jonah never this close to tragedy before. All of his

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[dearest_ella]

It wasn't uncommon for Ella to find herself dreadfully behind in terms of news. She had never been one to pour over the Prophet on a daily basis the way many wizards did (if it wasn't on the front page and glaring enough to catch her attention when a stack of the day's copy was delivered to her department, she just never quite bothered to read it), and she preferred old vinyls of classical recordings to the chattering of the WWN. So unless something made its way across her desk in the form of an unfiled report, or a particularly noteworthy event was incessantly talked about around the office, she could very easily be left out of the loop on current events

[chase_em]

"Hi-"

His voice was shaky, throat hoarse from crying, maybe or just sitting there in the over-conditioned hallways. He hadn't expected to see Ella here, knowing that her brother died in a fashion very similar to this, knowing that (as far as Ava explained), it wasn't something she was at all comfortable talking about. She still hadn't mentioned it to him. And that was something he was alright with, that he understood. Especially now, the burden of having to explain to people what happened, how tight his voice grew or how shaky his hands went whenever it happened.

But she was here. It didn't matter how long his mother had been in the hospital or how long it had been since he'd last seen her.

She was here.

He turned to face her, his hand reaching to brush back through her hair, his heart still pounding in his chest as he pressed his lips to her cheek.

"You didn't have to come," he told her, as he pulled back just slightly. "I mean- I know that it can't be easy-"

[dearest_ella]

Ella didn't quite give him the option of pulling away any more, meeting his shaken greeting and so uncharacteristically broken expression by pulling him back in, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face against the side of his neck, desperately clinging to something warm and solid in this cold and fleeting sort of space. Both for his sake and (as much as she tried to deny and ignore it and push it away, because this most definitely was not about her, and she was all too used to burying these flares of memories to let them get to her now when she fully intended to be the solid, supporting one) her own-

"I should've come sooner- I didn't-" Didn't know, then didn't know when, didn't know howShe pulled back just enough to catch his eye, fingers lightly curling through the disheveled curls at the back of his head. "Jonah, I'm so sorry- is she-?" She left the question hanging, flicking a quick look at the eerily still figure of the woman laid out across the bed, a stranger to her in nearly every way, yet the sight of

[chase_em]

"She's asleep- or a coma, I don't know-"

He sounded frustrated. Well, he was. Of all the potions and all the antidotes, there was nothing that was really working. A few ointments kept the wounds clean and stopped the bleeding, herbal remedies. But he could hear the Healers when they talked to his father. "She's a Muggle, Mister Linney. She doesn't have the same magical ties that we do-" as if that was meant to help them feel better, as if that would at all ease their mind when their wife, their mother, their aunt was just laying there in some sort of strange slumber.

He tilted his head down, his hand reaching for hers. He didn't realize how much he needed her here with him until she came. Just the warmth of her hand was enough to make him catch his breath.

He didn't say anything for a moment.

He just sat there, comforted by her presence beside him, wondering when this whole nightmare was going to end, when he was going to wake up.

"Thank you-" he said, after a moment. "I can't sit here alone like this anymore-"

[dearest_ella]

Ella tucked one foot up beneath her, pulling the other knee in against her chest as she shifted on the stiff excuse for a couch-like seat to properly face him, both hands reaching down to wrap around his

[chase_em]

Her hands felt warm around his, her soft skin comforting. He inhaled deeply, his breath catching in his throat as the severity of it all continued to weigh down on his shoulders. He brought her hands to his lips briefly, brushing them barely against her knuckles. He had sat alone here for hours, it felt like, watching and waiting.

Marlow had taken an earlier shift in the morning before Jonah finally pushed her to go. She'd already been on the brink as it was before all this had happened, and it killed him to see it all come crashing back down on her when she was just starting to make some progress.

His dad hadn't left the hospital room.

His whole family was turned upside in a matter of a bloody minute.

"You're here-" he said. "Honestly, after everything, that's enough-"

He rested his forehead against her shoulder.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Ella."

[dearest_ella]

In the months since she and Jonah had gone from casual acquaintances to drunken hookups to actual admitted couple, he had certainly had a way of getting her heart to skip in unprecedented ways, to have her stomach filling with butterflies and doing summersaults with just a single look or touch.

But this, the crack and desperation in his voice, and the way he all but sank into himself as he leaned in against her, had her chasing her breath and her heart clenching in completely different ways.

She reached up to curl a hand around the back of his neck, turning to softly press her lips to side of his head. "You're doing the only thing you can do- I'm so sorry- I know it's not- she'll be alright- if she's made it this far, it's just a matter of time, yeah?"

[chase_em]

He knew Ella when they were younger, his eyes always catching the Montgomery twin in the halls, something about her so much more catching than her sister. It was easier to tell them apart back then, their uniforms always perfectly uncoordinated. He had been curious about her then, about what made her laugh and what made her smile

[dearest_ella]

Ella's chin tipped with the slightest of nods as she forced the small hint of a tightlipped reassuring smile, her fingers lightly trailing down Jonah's cheek, as if the brush of her hand could somehow wipe away the weariness of worry that had sunken into his familiar features.

She leaned in to press a soft brush of a kiss below his eye, swiping her thumb across the line of his cheekbone.

"Of course- I'll stay as long as you need-"

However reluctant she had been to step foot inside the hospital, to be trapped within walls that held nothing but heartache and buried memories, there was nothing now that could draw her back out so long as Jonah was here and his mother laid on that bed.

[chase_em]

He once fell off his broom when he was twelve years old, dropping two stories to the cold, hard December ground. He and Marlow had been practicing catch, Marlow playing Chaser to his Keeper while they were both home for the Christmas holiday. But something twitchy happened, the bristles catching on an old oak tree that sat outside of his bedroom window and before he knew it, his ankle twisted and he fell before Marlow could try and stop him

[dearest_ella]

"I- it's fine- don't be sorry," she shook her head, firmly lacing her fingers through his. "I'm here, and I'm not leaving-"

No one in their right mind found hospitals particularly easy. But there was something more personal rather than general about the unnecessary apology, a more pointed acknowledgement, considering the particulars of this whole mess of a heartbreaking situation, than she really didn't know what to do with.

As far as she knew, there was no reason why Jonah should know. It had been a messy time when she had found herself in this sort of room, the pages of the Prophet filled with more casualties than headlines, panic and worry running rampant. Back then, little Atticus James would have been just another name on a long list-

Ella never talked about AJ for a variety of reasons. Because no one needed to know. Because talking wouldn't change or fix anything. Because everyone had suffered during, and before, and after, the war, and her family's grief deserved no particular attention nor pity. Because talking about it

[chase_em]

He hadn't told Ella he knew yet, about her brother and his attack. He hadn't even told her about his run-in with Ava during the St. Patrick's Day Festival, an event that was now over a month old and for some reason, that made him think it was probably too late to tell her, that it would sound like he was keeping something from her. Truth was, he didn't even know how to bring it up. Who would? It made incredible sense why she would keep it quiet, why someone as strong as Ella wouldn't want to discuss something so tragic.

And now- as they sat here outside of his mother's hospital room, Jonah's whole body and mind out of whack, he knew this was the exact last moment he should ever bring it up.

It could wait.

But something els couldn't. Not when his mother's life had fallen into danger in the blink of an eye.

"I love you," he said, the words catching in his throat.

[dearest_ella]

Of all the things Ella might have expected to hear, this, those three simple et inherently weighted words, was definitely not it.

She didn't expect the way her heart seemed to stop altogether for an extended moment before picking up again at twice its normal speed, or the flush of warmth that started at the pit of her stomach and quickly rushed up to her cheeks.

Or the way the words so easily clicked in her mind and slipped right off her tongue in return. Without thinking about it, without mulling it over through a system of analytical considerations and rational reasonings, that unnamed flutter the sight or feel or thought of Jonah had taken to setting off in her suddenly figured itself out-

"Jonah- I love you-" She wasn't entirely sure she had said it out loud for a moment, hushed as it had been, drowned out by the pulsing sound of blood pounding in her ears.

[chase_em]

He couldn't help but look up at her, his eyes darting to hers with a sort of wonder, a feeling of warmth shooting through him that he never expected to feel in this moment but thankful for it as the halls of the hospital were so chilly. He didn't expect her to ever return those words, the ones that slipped from his tongue in his desperation, in Jonah's need to have her there with him.

He never thought he'd end up with Ella in this way but he couldn't imagine being here with anyone else.

"Merlin-" he breathed, tears brimming in his eyes again. "I don't know what I'd do without you here-"

[dearest_ella]

"Then I suppose it's a good thing you won't have to find out, yeah?" she spoke past the knot in her throat, reaching up again to lightly cup his face and swipe at the brimming tears that had her stomach twisting up with that desperate wish to somehow be able to fix things-

However long it took, she had accumulated enough unspent vacation and personal days to practically be able to take a month off of work without repercussions. If Jonah planned on sitting vigil until his mother woke up, then she wasn't going to let him do it alone any longer than she already had.

Though, judging from the state of him, she was half considering dragging him away already for the sake of forcing him to sleep in something more comfortable than a hospital waiting room for at least a few hours-

[chase_em]

It was one of those brief and fleeting moments when Jonah put aside his consistent issues with social anxiety to be grateful for the overwhelming size of his family. There was always someone here to keep watch on Rowan, someone always sitting by her bedside. It had been his father more than anyone, his grandmother coming when she could (when someone was there to let her inside, being a Muggle a bit of an issue) and Marlow even taking time off from Hogwarts to spend checking in with Healers. As much as Jonah wished he could be here every day, all day, he had a contract to maintain and even with his team's support, he knew he had to make practice