In a moment, there was life.
He stood on the brink, toes curling into the cold stone floor and breath, miraculous and troubling and confusing, seeping into his lungs. A fog lived inside of him, thick and comforting, crowding in close with the promise of rest if he would just close his eyes, just let it close over him and welcome him back. His lungs ached with the cold, with the gasp that followed the first, greedy for more and the stillness, the quietness, that murmured fondly in his ear.
But there was something else there too — a rumbling of voices like thunder from a distance, a call that reached out over them that sounded like —
— He knew that name and that voice. The fog protested, shushing and smothering in, but his head turned, unseeing towards that voice, towards the soft ripple of something in the air that lay just behind him if only he could take those steps backward just one or—
There was another voice now, louder and insistent. Hi, who—
He didn’t know that one, didn’t much care to either, because the louder she was the less he could hear of the other one, the less he seemed to understand. His mouth moved silently, as if to answer, tongue tripping and numb, barely a rasp of a noise crawling out of his throat before, “No.”
He blinked. Once, then twice, the blurred ripples of grey and black and smeared peachy shapes in between reconciling to something, someone. Dread reared, like an ugly beast through the fog, understanding that this something stood between him and what lay behind him, behind the voice that seemed to fade and fade and—
He’d been in danger, hadn’t he?
“Where—” it rasped out of him, punched out of his lungs as his senses suddenly, violently clawed their way out of the soothing attempts to subdue him and instincts attuned to survival took over. Between fight or flight, he’d always picked fight. The figure approaching was barely more than a smear in his vision, but his fist reeled back and slammed forward anyway as the echoes in his head began to scream.
You idiot. We need to run — we need to —
With his back to her, Theodore had no qualms about rolling his eyes. Three scoops of sugar ruined the drink. She was going to make herself sick one day and he wasn’t going to contribute to her poor health if he could help it. Not when she spent what seemed like every night baking sugar filled treats, if her constant mornings of forcing baked goodies on their team was any indication. “I know, Bell.“ He could practically feel her reproachful glare, didn’t need to see it to know exactly how stern she attempted to look.
She was drawing something on her boots, the fiddling motion that wouldn’t cease grabbing his attention once or twice during the long night. That wasn’t regulation. That wasn’t allowed. He wouldn’t say anything of it to anyone but Katie could not believe she would get away with such blatant disobedience for long. “Keep your eyes on the curtain.”
Theodore moved down the hall, taking a left then a right. Another right, two more lefts and he was in the staff room where the ever just boiled kettle waited for the poor souls stuck on the morning shift after an overnight. Or in his and his partner’s case, two full days in a row. The act of preparing their cups, putting a scoop of sugar in his and two in Katie’s was one of solace. He had begun to think clearer as soon as he had left the death chamber, the allure of the veil extended upon the whole room. It was as though the voices had left his head entirely and Theo found himself looking over his shoulder for someone standing there. No one was. He was entirely alone in the staff room. It was just his father’s voice still in his head, telling him to touch that dark fabric full of life at once.
Drinks prepared, he made his way back to the Death Chamber with a well hidden reluctance. Even the possibility of discovering something about why people were returning to the land of the living in the first place didn’t inspire any true motivation to this assignment. He’d rather be in the research department. Not subject collection. Stalling at the door, after the twists and turns he now could navigate in his sleep, Theodore cast a warming charm on Katie’s cup and placed it on the small shelf outside the door. Food and drink weren’t permitted inside the chambers nor in any of the specialty rooms within the Department but some rules had been relaxed as their resources had grown thin. It was much preferred to have two Unspeakables on watch, one just barely within the confines of the room, then only one.
With one hand on his cup and the other on the handle, Theodore opened the door and closed it quickly behind him at the sight of another naked man standing in front of the veil. Even the Returned were due some privacy. He hadn’t fallen onto the cushioned charmed floor. He was speaking to Katie. This was not how it was supposed to go. They all came through barely conscious. They didn’t converse. Ever the watcher, Theo paused as his hand brought his wand out and up. A quick glance to his watch noted the time, 10:17, and he flicked his wand to begin a timer, counting the seconds until the man fainted.
His wand shot out in front of him before he realized it. The silent stunning spell a base reaction at seeing a fist meet his partner’s face. Reactions may save your life but they weren’t how Theodore worked well. He had fired widely too far to the left, missing the man entirely and hitting Bell square in the chest with his wordless stupefy. Fuck. Fucking hell. He didn’t operate well under pressure and dueling was very much not his forte. Remembering to place his cup at the foot of the door, rules always the priority, Theo began taking the stairs two at a time down to the chamber’s floor. He didn’t dare fire again until he was closer to this anomaly. “Please stand down! You must be very confused, sir. We’re only here to assist you in getting some care.” Katie was so much better at this, speaking to them. Theo hardly knew what to say, surprised his voice had even reached a volume loud enough to carry across the room. Figuring he had closed enough distance, and Theo knew now he really may need his glasses not just for reading, he mumbled a quiet ebublio.
It was safe to say today was not Katie Bell’s day. Despite heaps of naked wix practically falling from the sky and into her lap as of late, her luck still had not seemed to change.
First came the punch. It was violent and fierce, causing her neck to bend one hundred and eighty degrees as Fabian’s knuckles collided with the apple of her cheek. Her wand went flying into the air before bouncing off concrete and disappearing beneath the same stone bench Theo previously occupied. Fabian’s punch carried the weight of a rogue bludger striking in the middle of a quidditch match, which was perhaps the only reason Katie was able to regain stable footing rather than topple immediately to the ground. She was no stranger to this kind of force, even as unexpected in nature as the strike came. Darkness blurred and she swore stars briefly rotated in the outline of her weary vision. That’s going to leave a mark.
Of course it didn’t stop there. Time slowed. Katie could feel her panicked breathing intensify as the cold gritty atmosphere of the Death Chamber clawed against skin before penetrating her lungs. She opened her mouth to speak again—this man was certainly not okay judging by his aggressive demeanor, but she would do what she could to appease him.
Apparently though, that would be nothing.
Theo’s fight or flight instincts seemed to kick in ( Katie didn’t even know when he returned from his journey to the break room ) as a silent spell sprang from the tip of his wand. It happened so quickly, all the woman could do was stare blankly at the light as it beamed directly into her chest. It wasn’t the first time she had been on the receiving end of one of his spells, however, it was the first time neither of them were instructed to do so by their superiors. This was not a drill, which she was now discovering the hard way as her body temporarily crumpled to the floor. Disabled by her own partner rather than the naked, punch-throwing maniac who just came back from the dead.
The concrete floor was much colder under these pretenses. Unlike her previously crouched position allowing her to effortlessly color on her shoes, her entire body now draped against it. Despite being rendered unconscious, Katie could still somehow feel every crevice drawn into the floor beneath her as Theo’s voice flickered between dimensions. Godric, did he sound like he could use a hand too.
To bad he managed to run both of hers completely out of commission for the time being.
