Wading Through The Shadows

Theo couldn't be dead. Even in the worst of her nightmares he was always alive. Maybe drastically changed (like a werewolf) or in pain (as the victim of the cruciatus curse) but Theo seemed so invincible that she never really pictured him dead. They'd lived through too much together for him to be taken down in a filthy back alley and left alone to bleed. He deserved better than that, he'd earned it. The coolness of his skin made her stomach clench up into uncomfortable knots and it felt like her own blood had turned into ice in her veins, thawing only a little when he stirred with feeble signs of life.

Or not so feeble. Despite his injuries Theo could talk and move, barely but that was still something. He was too strong to be claimed by the alley just yet. He needed help but Mali wasn't the one to help him. Emergencies out around the wizarding world was where Theo shined, not Mali. She needed a controlled environment. His finger against her temple was so deathly cold and she shook her head, shaking his hand away. "I can't. You know I can't." He saw her, didn't he? Theo had swooped in and saved the patients that she couldn't when she wouldn't listen to him about Medi-Wizardry. How she stubbornly insisted that she could and he'd told her she couldn't and she did it anyway and needed saving. He knew it, she knew it. The alley was quietly chaotic. The ground was rough under her knees, the sounds of rustling rubbish(rodents, probably) further down in the alley mixed with howling wind to make her jumpy. The darkness felt so ominous, whatever it hid within it's depth felt like it was staring back at her and waiting for the right moment to pounce. Her heart pounded in her ears, making it impossible to think.

"I'll go.. I'll go get someone. Tristan. I'll find him." The dying troll pushed her wand closer and Mali grabbed it and stood up, taking a step back away. Tristan, Eoin, Draco... Any of them were bound to be better than her, all she had to do was find them. Mali couldn't shake the feeling that if she left Theo it would be the last time she saw him alive. It kept her rooted to the spot, unable to twist around and disappear into the night. The last of his strength would bleed out and he would die alone on the cobblestone. She dissolved into tears at the very thought of it, taking to her knees again next to him. It wasn't fair, she healed Remus whenever he needed it but she couldn't help Theo. The spells were hiding from her memory, just out of reach. Remus had been on death's door a time or two and showed up, but it was in his home or hers. Meg too. It was a comfortable, controlled environment that she worked in. She knew where everything was, just had to follow protocol and in an hour they were on the mend. Theo.. Who knew if the person that attacked him was still around, watching?

"Please don't leave me." Mali half sobbed and half spoke as she crumbled under the pressure of it all. "Please. Please don't." Mali knew that if Theo had a choice, he wouldn't leave her alone, but he was critically injured. "I can't do it alone." Theo was always there for her, always. No matter what, that's why he was in the alley tonight. Theo needed her tonight and she knew both that she couldn't fix him and that she had to because Theo deserved more than this, more than her sobbing beside him as he perished in an alley.

After a deep breath Mali extinguished her wandlight with a command of "Nox." That plunged them into instant darkness and she gasped, squeezing the hand she had hold of. She hated the dark, especially when she couldn't see what was in it. Without her wandlight she couldn't even see the wounds to try and fix them but with the wandlight she couldn't use her wand to heal him. "I can do this.." she whispered to herself, searching her brain for a solution. "I can. I just need..." Mali untangled her fingers from Theo and patted him down, looking for his wand. "Your wand. Where is it?" She didn't expect much of an answer from him but talking helped distract herself from both the darkness and the sound of her own hyperventilation.

It took a precious moment but she found the instrument she was looking for. "Please, please work." Hoping the wand could sense her intention to help it's owner, Mali whispered the incantation and the tip of the wand brightened. To free up her hands she stuck it between her teeth but found the healing spells muffled against the wood. It was just another problem to work through and she stuck the wand behind her ear. It was a surprisingly good idea, working like a sort've weird head lamp. It provided her with just enough light to see what she what she was doing and freed up her hands to work with her own wand on the wounds.

Gods, Theo didn't understand. He was looking to her to fix him but Mali's mind had gone blank. The incantations sat on the very tip of her tongue and Mali knew that she knew them which made it all the more frustrating. It was a vicious cycle, the frustration clouded her brain and made it harder to think and recall the spells. Theo kept trying to push her into helping him because he just didn't understand that she felt like a first year armed with a wand and no idea how to use it. It was just a fancy, useless stick and she was a useless girl who didn't deserve the title of witch.

The solution seemed so obvious, she would find someone else to fix him. Mali was always looking to others to bail her out of trouble, usually it was Theo but now that Theo was the one in trouble. She knew so many talented healers, it was only a matter of finding them. Tristan would be the best choice but where to find the lighter troll? Remus was useful with healing spells. A light sensation at her shoe drew her attention down and she stepped back away from his hand, right out of his reach. "Please, I need to find someone else." the witch begged for his understanding as he pleaded not to be left behind. Somehow it didn't compute for Theo that she couldn't help him, he had so much trust and belief in her abilities despite how many times she illustrated the contrary. If he could have that much confidence in her then she had to do it.

It brought her back to him, that and the knowledge that he would likely die alone before she could return. Theo was growing frustrated and he wanted to heal himself, that ripped her in two. Theo had given up on her now, too. Useless. Mali felt so absolutely useless, she called herself a Healer, a specialist and the most important person in the world to her was about to bleed to death from the very thing that she was supposed to specialize in. Spell damage. This was spell damage and she couldn't bloody fix it. Theo's hand on her knee startled her but it meant a very important thing, that he hadn't given up on her. He still believed that she could fix him and that meant that she had to. Mali couldn't let Theo down because he would never let her down.

Mali got to work, blindly searching for his wand. "You're trying to trick me." she scolded lightly when his right pocket was empty. "It's in your left, silly troll." If she could keep chattering and searching and working then she could piece Theo back together. The wand light only barely illuminated his face and chest. Mali tore the tattered remnants of his shirt away to expose the wounds, allowing her a better look. Squinting against the darkness, the witch traced along one of the slash marks with her fingers, trying to memorize the edges and borders of his torn flesh so she could knit the wound together in the dim lighting. The spell still felt like it was hiding from her but Theo's hiding caught it and dragged it back. The rhythm wasn't perfect but it was enough. She paused and listened to it 'til she could join in and keep the beat of the melodic spell with him.

She felt along the wound again, this time she followed her fingers with the tip of her wand, reciting the sing song incantation. Mali's voice cracked and trembled with the effort, but Theo's hand on her knee and help with the spell grounded her and allowed her to work. The blood slowed and the jagged edges began to pull together and the skin began to knit. "D'you remember the first time we were in this alley?" she asked between spells as she wiped away the blood, talking again to keep her anxiety about the darkness at bay. "That's when I fell in love with you." It was impossible to shake the creeping feeling that the shadows had eyes and ill intentions but talking to Theo, dragging up a surprisingly good memory. When Mali was satisfied that the first gash was healed enough, she moved on to the next one and repeated the process. The witch felt along the wound and then traced it with the tip of her wand, chanting the incantation. "I was too stubborn to realize it, though. Not just because you saved me, either." Like she was saving Theo. Mali readjusted the wand behind her ear and bent over Theo. Her face was lined with concentration as she worked. "I fell in love with your gentleness. You'd never think a troll could be gentle, would you? But you defy logic in the best ways."

It was only one word, one silly word, but it meant everything to Mali. It meant that Theo was holding on and he was still with her, that she wouldn't have to fumble around in the darkness alone as she tried to piece the troll back together. "That's right." Mali agreed quietly. "You're my favorite Troll." Who ever thought she would fall in love with a troll? Or that a word that she once threw as an insult would be so dear to her? The name was something precious between them, it spoke of what bonded them but made it light and playful. When they had light again Theo was smiling. It was a hazy smile, muddled by his weakened state but it still looked handsome against his paling skin, bathed in a dim wandlight. Mali would go to the ends of the earth for that smile and farther to restore it's brightness and vitality.

The Healer worked diligently, feeling her way around Theo's chest, half blinded by darkness, and tending to each the best she could. Concentration lined her face and she bit down hard on her lower lip between incantations, using the bite of pain to keep her grounded. Neither one of them could afford to have her go spinning off into a storm of anxiety and fear. She had been afraid of the dark for as long as she could remember but in the past year that feeling had intensified to a full on panic over darkness. She persisted, and chatted to take her mind off the howling wind or sinister shuffling and rustling of rats and rubbish in the alley. Mali chanced a look at Theo's face as she told him about how she fell in love with him and her heart dropped into her stomach. Pain was clearly visible on his shadowed features and it made her chest ache with sympathy and a desire to take the pain away.

Mali set down her wand to give Theo a little break from the pain, just a moment or two, and ran her fingers over his cheek. "You're remembering it wrong. You sacrificed me to the spiders." A troll to be afraid of something so small (though creepy.). "I had no choice but to protect you, then. I'd do it again, though." Mali soon returned to her work, magicking the wounds away 'til Theo was left with angry raised lines decorating his chest. The witch ran her fingers over the last of the healed wounds, they would still require attention later but Theo wasn't going to bleed to death, it was satisfactory for now. She sat back on her knees in awe of what had just happened. "I did it..." Mali, despite her lack of confidence, had pieced Theo back together. "I did it. Okay, now what?" She had to coach herself through the rest, there was no time to gloat. Who knew where whoever had hurt Theo had gone off too, or if they would be back. "We have to get out of here. I'm going to take you to... to.. somewhere." St. Mungo's didn't seem like a great idea, the last thing Theo needed was to show up with marks of dark magic. "Home. Can you stand?"