“For the record, the stuff in the IV bag is saline. It’s water, but cleaner, in a nutshell. And the fact that they have you on a saline drip means they don’t want you drinking fluids most likely, so I’m going to deny your request. I mean, unless you like throwing up with your body aching that bad.”

The slip up was aggravating. He almost considered just turning around and leaving. A nerve in his jaw twitched, actually, as he fought to keep himself calm. 

“I will however ask the doctors for you if you can have liquids, so you won’t have to wait until later to do that.”

And this, this was an excuse to excuse himself from the room to calm down. He was annoyed with the both of them. Rowan had always been touchy with relationships, and him and Miko was no excuse. He did have basic manners, however if it happened one more time, someone would get told off. 

As he rolled out of the room, and into a bathroom, he took a shallow breath, growling softly under his breath. He fixed his hair, and the minimalistic eyeliner his father had forced him to wear. 

He then went back over to the door, grabbing the papers from the clipboard next to the entrance, reading though the notes. He always thought it was dangerous to just have these records sitting in the folders- or on the clipboards next to the patient’s door. 

An awful lot happened while Elena was watching quietly, and now she was halfway sulky and entirely confused. Rowan stepped out for a moment giving the girl the decision of either leaving with Rowan or grilling Miko on basically the same thing.

Interrogating the one that can't run away, much easier to do, so that's the plan. Elena raised an eyebrow at Miko as soon as Rowan was outside the room, "Is Rowan okay? I haven't seen him this annoyed before... well, ever. What happened? Are you too not friends anymore or something?"

Elena Jones had the emotional intelligence of a particularly shiny rock, and as a result had no idea about the history between Miko and Rowan, and had assumed they were friends, or similar. So now she was in the difficult situation of having annoyed one friend completely on accident and by something Elena didn't even realise she'd done. And the other one was half dead and probably not thinking well, being oblivious had its ups and downs, this was most certainly a down.

"Also what did I do?" Elena asked quietly, assuming is was mostly her fault and not just a series of communication errors caused by mercury being in retrograde.

Oh boy..I'm doomed.

Miko watched Rowan roll out and mentally face palmed, knowing if he did so physically he would start crying again. "I-It's complicated...I don't want to talk about it." The boy frowned and looked away from Elena, putting a hand on the locket he had kept the whole time. Instead of throwing it out or just forgetting it he still wore it as a reminder of the sheer joy and how naive he wished he still was.

The Hufflepuff slipped off the golden locket and held it to his forehead, making sure to avoid his black eye as to not bawl his eyes out again. The tears hurt his black eye a lot, also his ribs. Crying just hurt emotionally and physically, how fun.

The clipboard Rowan was reading gave more information than the doctors should have just left laying around.

-
-
Patient: Miko Cirius Limof
Age: 11
Diagnosis: 2 fractures ribs, bruised rib cage, Black eye, Fractured right hip, Broken left shoulder, Over 5 bruises up and down abdominal area
Mental Diagnosis: Higher anxiety, light depression from at least a month ago
Treatment: Unknown currently
Status: UNCURED

!!CLASSIFIED!! !DANGER: PATIENT MAY BE HIDING SOMETHING!
-
-

That's what the clipboard read. Clearly the doctors were not meant to leave it just outside the door judging by the bolded letters on the bottom of the sheet. 

“Safety risk indeed..”

He mumbled, flipping through the pages, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. 

Rowan hummed softly under his breath, as he rolled back into the room, still reading over the paperwork, mumbling to himself without even really noticing. The both of them would barely be able to hear him. Half of what he said was in french as well, so it really didn’t matter what they heard. (Darker colour is english)

“Why do they have bloody mental issues on here? Miko’s not suicidal, so that wouldn’t matter.. at least he shouldn’t be suicidal. Only reason I would think he is is... it doesn’t matter... probably just on there from his general medical history... these people are terrible at documenting... they don’t even have the medication he’s on on here..” 

He sighed softly, closing the file and rolling back into the hall, humming softly still as he replaced the clipboard in its place once more. He retreived the glass of water and rolled back inside, handing it to Miko, making sure he had a good grasp on it before he...

Rowan stalled, his gaze caught on the locket. His hand still wrapped around the cup, he studied the piece of metal, humming stopped dead in it’s tracks. He seemed frozen for a moment before he suddenly pulled back, like he had touched hot metal, the cup of water now in Miko’s grasp. 

“Don’t drink the water too fast. You’ll make yourself sicker. And probably throw up again. Which will not, infact, help your ribs.”

He resumed normal whatever, rolling back a bit to his place near the wall, glancing around the room, everywhere but Miko now though.

Miko held the locket for a moment after Rowan had come back in, tightening his grip on it. A ton of memories flashed through his brain while it was pressed against his forehead almost like it was a weird flash drive. Once he forwarded back to the present he realized the cup was in his hands and the Gryffindor was clearly avoiding his gaze. The Hufflepuff took a small sip of water and let go of the locket, watching it slide onto the ground before mentally face palming once more.

Deciding he'd ignore the locket on the ground, Miko pretended there was no noise of metal hitting the ground nor a gold locket he was just holding. It never happened in his eyes and he prayed to whatever was about the clouds to let Rowan not have noticed it but it seemed a bit too late for that. While he was thinking the other male seemed to have noticed it already but Miko didn't want to believe it. He remembered what happened as if it were yesterday, Rowan got rid of his locket but Miko kept his..for some reason.

The Hufflepuff wanted to laugh at Rowan's remark partially but knew if he did two things were going to happen. 1. His ribs would probably go to hell again and 2. He would get attention drawn to him. Great. 

"I-ehm-y-th-th-tha-than-thanks R-R-R.." Miko gave up and shook his head, ready to regret it but remembering of all the body parts he had his head nor neck had been injured.

Elena's eyes were focused on the locket for a split second before she was lost in thought, Miko's bruises were so extensive. Elena wondered why they weren't using bruise ointment on it, she had some in her first aid kit, it was in most every basic first aid kit. She glanced out the window, and wondered why nobody had thought of that.

Rowan came back into the room with the water for Miko, and was deliberately not looking at Miko, anywhere but Miko, in fact. The locket had slid to the ground, and since it was something shiny, Elena's reflex was to pick it up and put it in her pocket. Luckily she overroad the second part of that urge, simply putting it on the bedside table next to Miko. Elena returned to where she was sitting and put one foot up on the chair she was on, making it almost look like she was crouching. It was comfier sitting like that than like normal, "Well, it's been interesting meeting you Miko, I see why Tal likes you so much. She's the sweetest kid, except maybe Min-seo, I don't know."

Elena could feel the awkward in the air like it was treacle, "So, um, I. Uh."

Yes, excellent sentence making Elena, brilliant, truly a word system for the ages.

Rowan blocked the bulk of what she said out, eyes refocusing on the locket once it landed on the bedside table. And after a few seconds, tears filled his eyes. Which was totally out of Rowan fashion.

The soft click of metal hitting the table echoed through his head. Why was he crying? He wasn’t supposed to care about him having the locket. He wasn’t supposed to care whatsoever. He wasn’t supposed to care that he slipped up and almost called him babe or whatever. 

The list grew longer by the second, but it all came to the census of he did care, and it hurt. All of it hurt. The loneliness because Riley hadn’t been around for awhile. 

Black stained tears finally fell from his eyes and Rowan came back down to reality, swiping at his eyes.

“Ah- fuck-! Screwing up my damn makeup. I love hospital air making my eyes dry.” 

Rowan laughed weakly. He pretended. He avoided. He didn’t acknowledge his pain, just shoved it down deeper, and let it pile up until he could break down in private again. 

“My father is probably wondering where I am. I need to get back to my room.”

Miko shook his head, finally deciding he wasn't going to let this one pass.

"Your father doesn't need to be up your ass all the time, excuse my language. Stay." This was the first time the Hufflepuff swore openly and in front of two people and it was for a good reason. Miko was confident that this time he wouldn't let himself screw it all up and that this time he would not just let the other male flee. He knew what the other was doing and damn well, too. Of course being around Rowan as much as he was you learn his ways.

"You need to stop hiding everything, Rowan. Talking is good..I mean says me but even I know. Elena, not to be rude but may you give us a moment?" He gestured to the door, trying to drop a subtle hint of Elena that this was not going to be one of those small chit-chats where he was going to talk for about five minutes and let it be. This, and he was going to make sure of it, would not be avoided. Not at all.

Miko sighed and ignored the sharp pain in his side when he did that, instead picking up the locket and fastening it around his neck once more. His eyes stung with tears that he just kept blinking away and made sure he was not going to cry this time. This time, the lad had to be strong and tough. He could not let Rowan take control this time because lord knows he would just avoid it for longer than it should be avoided.

The Hufflepuff took a long drink from the water, swallowing a few times to make sure it wouldn't come back up. Miko kept his right hand rested on the heart-shaped locket with the picture inside. A light silver glow was coming from the inside the locket which only he knew meant the picture had been changed. Judging by the silver light it was a memorable moment, something sad was in the picture.

That locket was obviously very important to whatever drama was going on, and when Elena was asked to give them a moment she got up, albeit wobbly, and nodded. She didn't need to stay here when something was clearly going on, she barely remembered to pick her book up off the table as she got all her things, ready to go.

"Absolutely, I might leave and head to back to wherever or whenever or something. Basically not here, nice seeing you again Rowan, nice meeting you Miko. Someone tell me what's going on later, I'm gone." Elena nodded and smiled at them both by way of goodbye and left out the door at an alarming speed.

You see, the trip to the hospital had held more than one surprise, her grandmother had given Elena something amazing: A name, of someone in her year at the grand school of Hogwarts, and that's what she was now holding in her pocket, a letter that her grandmother had received from someone that the old woman knew was Elena's cousin.

So Elena dashed carefully out of the Hospital and back to the castle she was now calling home, before returning to her dorms to open the slightly old letter.

Basically this was the ‘oh shit’ moment when Miko swore. He blushed harshly out of embarrassment from getting told off but he stayed. 

The silver glow distracted him for a moment, though he still waved slightly to Elena before she left. 

“So they’re enchanted?”

He said softly. Tears pooled in his eyes once more. He closed them quickly and leaned his head back, hitting the arm of his chair quickly as he sucked in a breath, struggling to keep the tears from falling. 

“What do you even want to talk about Miko? It won’t help. You know damn well where we left off. If I knew what was good for me I wouldn’t even be hanging around you, much less friends- no- much less allowing myself to cry infront of you.”

Tears fell fast, tearing the same dark streaks down his pale face, the pigment of the khol clinging to the water. 

“Why did you even keep it? Why does it say you have mild depression that started a few months back?”

He knew the answers to his questions. He didn’t want to believe them though. Didn’t want to let himself hope. Let himself think about that possibility. Think about any of it, really.