Bright Spot

Theo had to do this. He couldn't avoid an entire floor of his workplace for the rest of his career, no matter how little his daily duties actually brought him up here. The tearoom was above the third floor, and if Theo ever wanted a snack at work again...well. Beyond that, he imagined it looked a little suspicious, the wide berth he gave the Spell Damage ward - and Theo was very sensitive to looking suspicious these days. He was trying his hardest to just act normal, so when he was asked by a frazzled looking Healer to deliver a restock of calming draughts to the third floor, just as a favor, he didn't say no this time. This was it. He was returning to the scene of the crime.

Mali was up here somewhere, he knew. As he disembarked the stairs that connected the second floor to the third, he kept this at the forefront of his mind. They worked together but he hardly saw her there now because of how much he avoided this floor. He didn't know how she was capable of being up here on a daily basis, honestly - but he was glad she was. Because there was no way in hell he would have even been able to exit the stairs without the reminder that her face, very probably smiling beautifully, was somewhere in the very near vicinity - to run to in case he couldn't take it.

He found the third floor itself wasn't so bad. It resembled much of the rest of the hospital, a maze of corridors with rooms all over the place. It wasn't until he finally looked at the room number on the restock package in his hand that his heart dropped clear out of his chest. The fragile package would have fallen to the floor, too, if Theo's grip on it didn't immediately turn white-knuckled. That room was in the Janus Thickey ward. The third floor was one thing, but that ward was another entirely. That was the exact space where it happened, everything he'd done to end up like this. Already he started to shake, the vials in the package rattling against one another. But he had to do this. He was more than halfway there, and turning back now would be another cowardly action he could never forgive himself for.

On his slow walk to the locked ward, Theo looked everywhere for Mali, peeking into patient rooms and supply closets alike. He would give anything to have her there right now, holding him together while he did this. But he couldn't rely on her for every little thing, some part of him knew that (just a very quiet part). He couldn't put the burden of his entire life on her shoulders. He had to at least try to do it on his own. And try he did. Really, really tried.

He made it relatively far into the ward before the spins got to him. Right about the spot he'd stood where he committed his first murder, actually. Theo remembered that spot very, very well, identifying the particular ceiling tiles and hairline cracks in the walls with an immediacy that was dizzying. This was it, the exact spot. The exact moment he'd used every ounce of his will to avoid in the past weeks. Not just physically avoid, but mentally. The Imperius Curse was a double curse, really, because you always remembered what you did even if you didn't have a choice in doing it. Theo chose not to remember; he chose to block it all out and stow it deep away. The sensation of being in the very corridor where it all happened fished it all right out, mind pairing place with memory as minds are wont to do.

Those memories had spent so long in the darkness that they festered. Exposed to the present now, the light they abhorred, they felt like a disease burning their way through Theo's body. His grip on the potion package now was so tight that he crushed the vials within, the thick paper protecting his hand from the new shards of glass and leaking liquid within. His whole body was locked up in that same way, crushing in on his insides. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, his heart couldn't even beat properly. His face crushed inward too, screwing up in terror as he watched a ghost of himself commit murder before his very eyes. There was Mister Fischer, and Mister Longbottom, and Mali...

But Mali wasn't sobbing this time. She was looking up at him, touching him, speaking to him. Theo stumbled along willingly behind her, mindless of what he was actually doing. It wasn't until he was actually behind a closed door with her, the corridor of his nightmares once again blocked out, that he could relax the tension in his muscles, the choke-hold on his brain. He came out of it, the panic he thought he'd finally moved past, like a noodle. He fell limp against her touch - and her smile, gods, her smile. She was smiling at him and not anything else because that's what she did now, what they did for each other, and the relief he felt from that reminder was indescribable. Mali probably knew this by now, from days and nights with Theo, but he was touchy-feely, too. Incredibly. It was the best way he knew how to express himself (words often didn't work out so well for him) and nothing made him feel better than the physical presence of another person close to him. He scooped Mali into a hug, tight, hiding his face against her neck for some moments to gain some of his composure back. Going from zero to sixty back to zero in so short a time left him a bit blubbery.

"I thought I could do it," he spoke finally, pulling back to look at her. "You said we had to, or someone had to, so I tried. But I can't, Mali, I can't. I can't do it. How am I going to make it like this?"

With relief and draining tension also came realization. He'd been mindless in the hallway, blacked out to the unbearable world around him. Realizing he'd followed Mali even in that terrible uncontrolled state, just somehow knowing she was safety among all the dark around him, made him hold her a little tighter to him. How did Theo, the selfish and the problem-ridden, deserve someone so good? He realized his hands were empty, too, wrapped instead around her. She'd taken the broken package away so he wouldn't hurt himself - he recalled the faint shattering of glass outside. Mali knew him so intuitively it was no wonder he wanted to hold on forever.

That, and it was so much easier than talking. He felt comfort in Mali's arms but her words made his own throat close up. She was proud of him. He couldn't let her down by breaking back down at the very thought of there being a 'next time' for this. Theo was stuck wondering how he was even going to get out of this room without going back into that hallway. "Does it get easier?" He was questioning her, but he was sincere. Theo didn't know if it ever really got easier, any of it. Maybe because his emotions were so intense, but Theo still felt rather strongly about whatever tragedies struck over his years. Maybe not all the time, but they still hurt. Maybe that's what Mali meant by easier. Giving yourself some time so it only hurt every once in a while. Theo thought he might be able to live with that - if he could find a way to end the panic attacks. "I get so worked up it feels like it's going to kill me."

Not that it was surprising at this point, but Mali knew exactly the right direction to head things. Distraction. Second best to a good hug was a good distraction. "Calming draughts," he said with the smallest of smiles at the irony. He nodded at her directive. "Okay. They're probably all ruined, though." Theo cast a glance at the crumpled package, his gaze worming over to the empty patient bed as exhaustion went back and forth in his body like a wave. He moved away from Mali to slump down on the edge of the bed, eyeing the package with a strange sort of embarrassment at having ruined it because he couldn't control himself.

"I'm trying." Theo's declaration was as hesitant as Mali's need to look away for so long to answer him. He noticed, and it didn't give him much confidence that things would get better at all - but she was trying, too. Trying to give him a little honesty and hope and he really couldn't ask for anything else. Mali couldn't make him endure these times, some things a person had to pull up and do on their own, but she could sure make it a hell of a lot easier for him. The little smile growing on his face got its start with her light teasing - that was their thing, and Theo was so happy he had that thing, happy he had Mali to get him through this. He kissed her on the cheek. "Good. Because it's easier when I have you around." That was the utter truth of it. Just like she was doing this exact moment, Mali created a space that felt safe at those times when Theo felt the whole world was out to get him. Right up next to her felt the safest, and they stayed like that for some moments before disentangling to distract themselves with a problem they could actually solve - something else Theo was immensely grateful to Mali for.

Mali's persistent good humor was infectious - it always had been - and combined with their closed off safe space in the empty patient room, Theo felt his mood improving exponentially. He left his fear at the door, to be dealt with - with Mali by his side - after he got a chance to calm down. He dropped the attached embarrassment at having crushed the package, too, Mali's Big Secret making him nearly grin. He bumped her back with his elbow. "Yeah? Charm your way to his heart, too?" Even if he was feeling a bit lighter now, Theo couldn't deny some of the nerves that crept up at their action plan. He was having a hard time facing most of his coworkers still - apparently, not a lot of them believed his illness story from when he missed so much work, and that made him nervous. Eoin, though...he was Mali's best friend. Surely he was trustworthy.

Mali settled into his shoulder, making the offer he was too afraid to voice. He nodded his gratefulness. Theo didn't want to keep Mali from her work - and really, he hated seeming so weak - but he was far from ready to go back into the corridor. His adrenaline from the panic had bottomed out - now he had to recuperate to get any energy at all back. "Thank you. You weren't busy, were you?" Her hand found his and he laced their fingers together. She had a little more to say about their next steps, and despite a resurgence of nerves, Theo snorted a laugh. "I certainly believe it," he teased. "How is Eoin? I haven't really been over that way lately."