Pip hesitated again. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. Was she intruding on what should be a family moment?
“Good to see you too, Weezer.” Fieran grinned at his sister as she pulled back and gave him a light swat on the arm. Likely because of the use of her nickname.
Then Fieran’s gaze swung past Louise to focus on Pip. For a moment, his grin dropped, and he reached for the blanket with one hand while trying to shove himself more upright with the elbow of the arm encased in a splint. “Pip. Uh, hello. I...”
Pip crept closer, trying to work up a smile. “You seem to be feeling better.”
“Yeah.” Fieran stopped trying to push himself upright and instead ran a hand over his hair, as if to smooth it. Not that the gesture did much good. His red hair stuck up in all directions and was especially flattened and sticking at odd angles in the back, likely from lying down for so long.
He wore a hospital gown, and he seemed determined to keep the thin hospital blanket pulled all the way up his chest.
All three of them lapsed into silence. Louise edged toward the chair set beside the bed, then glanced at Pip as if wondering if she should offer the chair to her instead. It was the only one. If both of them were to sit, one of them would have to sit on the edge of Fieran’s bed.
Louise was currently closest to the chair, and Pip would have to edge awkwardly around her to take it.
Besides, this was Fieran. Pip had held his hand most of the train ride from Fort Defense. She’d braved the awkwardness of facing his dacha to see him after he crashed. She’d whispered with Fieran during moving pictures and fixed aeroplanes with him. If Louise hadn’t been there—if things hadn’t been so unsettled between them—Pip wouldn’t have thought more than twice about sitting on the edge of his bed.
Before Louise could offer the chair, Pip boosted herself onto the edge of Fieran’s bed next to his legs. The metal framed hospital bed sat high enough that her feet didn’t touch the floor anymore once she was settled.
Something in Fieran’s expression eased, and not just because his grin finally returned. He relaxed against his pillow again. “Have you settled in at the AMPC?”
Louise glanced between the two of them before she sank onto the chair, as if putting the pieces together of just how she’d ended up the third wheel on this visit.
“Somewhat. It was overwhelming yesterday. But I’m eager to get to work today.” Pip forced herself to look away from Fieran to include Louise in the conversation. “Louise has been making me feel welcome.”
Louise smiled back, though something searching remained in her expression. “I think you’ll fit in great at the AMPC.”
“Yeah, Pip is amazing.” Fieran held her gaze for a moment before he blinked and looked away. “I mean, her magic is amazing.”
Pip’s face felt hot, and she stared down at her hands in her lap. Was Fieran still hopped up on drugs and healing magic? How much could she really trust anything he said at the moment, no matter how lucid he looked?
With the squeak of a wheeled cart, a nurse pushed aside a curtain. “Pardon me. I have breakfast for Capt. Laesornysh.” The nurse picked up one of the trays from her cart and bustled pastPip and Louise to set the tray on the table beside Fieran. “Will you need help eating?”
“No.” Fieran’s ears turned red, and he struggled to sit up. He couldn’t quite bend at the waist, and the nurse hurried to plump the pillows behind him to hold him somewhat upright.
Pip slid off the bed and glanced at Louise. “I think we should be going.”
If she’d been there alone with Fieran—if their relationship had been more than it currently was—then Pip might have stayed. Perhaps she would have taken over the nurse’s job and helped Fieran eat his breakfast.
But they weren’t at that point, and right now, Fieran would find it more embarrassing than anything. The best thing they could do was gracefully bow out and let him retain some of his dignity.
Louise rose to her feet and stepped out of the nurse’s way. “Yes. We don’t want to be late on Pip’s first day.”
“I’m glad you came.” Fieran glanced between them, not reaching for his food just yet. Perhaps it was her imagination, but his gaze lingered longer on Pip than on Louise, as if he, too, was aching with all the words that needed to be said.
“We’ll come again as soon as we can.” Louise gave Fieran one last hug.
Pip forced herself to turn away and follow Louise around the curtain into the aisle of the hospital ward, all while trying to pretend that visit hadn’t been more than a little disappointing.
Pip saton a table with her back to the brick wall. While she and Louise had been visiting the hospital, a work crew had rigged two spools of the large cables so that one spool would wind ontoanother spool. The machinery to turn the spools was fueled by a magical power cell and controlled by a foot pedal.
She pressed the foot pedal with her right foot, easing the cable forward beneath her hands. As she did so, she rested her fingers on the cable and infused it with her magic bit by bit.
The magic and repetitive motion was soothing after the emotional turmoil of the morning. She desperately needed totalkwith Fieran. But she couldn’t while he was in the public ward of the hospital with so many people around.
When would she have a chance? If she wanted to visit the hospital alone, she’d have to tell Louise…and Louise was bound to have questions. If Pip waited until Fieran was discharged, he would be sent home and constantly surrounded by his family.
It seemed the only way she’d get a chance to talk to him alone would be to admit to his family that they were something more than just friends. And that seemed far too presumptuous when Fieran would likely break up with her the moment they had a chance to talk.
