unconsciousness would be an undesirable outcome

[self_composed]

On Sunday, Bella drives to the movie theater with Angela in tow, and her car breaks on the way home from Angela's house. She calls a tow truck, and calls her dad, and she goes home in the cop car and her station wagon goes on vacation to the mechanic.

On Monday, Charlie drives Bella to school.

As she's been discharged from the car and Charlie pulls away, a van driven by a panicking teenager screams out of nowhere towards Bella.

Making wishes is easy.

It is not automatic. It is not instantaneous.

The van creams Bella, good and proper.

Comments

[self_composed]

A doctor or a nurse or somebody pokes her head into the room and taps Charlie on the shoulder, and murmurs - genuinely too quietly to hear.

[edgeofyourseat]

So Alice watches Charlie.

[self_composed]

Charlie listens, and nods, and gets up and follows her out of the room.

[edgeofyourseat]

Yep. Okay.

Alice gets up and follows them as far as the hall.

[self_composed]

The doctor or nurse or somebody, and Charlie, are heading into a stairwell and up the stairs therein.

[edgeofyourseat]

...well, fuck it.

He follows them there, too.

[self_composed]

They go up two floors and down a hall, and then the doctor notices Alice, lagging behind.

She asks Charlie, "Is he a relative?"

Charlie looks at Alice, puzzled, and shakes his head.

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Are you goin' to see her, sir?" he asks. He didn't expect his voice to come out so rough, although he should have, because the last thing he did with it was cry.

[self_composed]

"Are you a friend of Bella's?" asks Charlie quietly.

"No friends," says the doctor, not unkindly. "Only immediate relatives."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yeah," he says.

[self_composed]

"No friends," repeats the doctor. "Please go sit in the waiting room."

Charlie doesn't look liable to contradict her.

[edgeofyourseat]

Quietly, to Charlie: "Can—can you tell me how she is?"

[self_composed]

"On my way out, if you're there," Charlie says, looking away.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Okay," he says, and flees back down the stairs.

[self_composed]

Four hours later, Charlie plods back down the stairs.

He pauses in the waiting room.

"She's unconscious. They don't know how long it'll take her to wake up. Stable, though."

And he leaves.

[edgeofyourseat]

Okay.

In that case... in that case, what the hell, he goes back out to the place with the unhelpful receptionist.

[self_composed]

The receptionist eyes him but doesn't say anything.

[edgeofyourseat]

"They letting her friends see her now?"

[self_composed]

"Yes, visitors' hours began a few minutes ago, but please be quiet and don't disturb anyone," says the receptionist. "Miss Swan is in room 306."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Thanks."

Up he goes.

[self_composed]

Bella is indeed in 306, a private room in which she's being administered an IV by a nurse. He glances at Alice and says, "Her left hand's basically okay. You can hold it if you want, but don't jostle her or put any pressure on her."

[edgeofyourseat]

"What-all's wrong with her?" he asks, unable to keep his eyes off the still figure on the bed.

[self_composed]

"Coma, various injuries," says the nurse. "I got other patients to get to." He hangs up the IV and departs.

[edgeofyourseat]

Okay. So.

What's that thing Bella said once? What does he want, and what does he have?

He wants a lot of things. Bella better, for one. That's easiest, but it's not going to happen without some things he doesn't have.

When she put that whole treasure chest's worth of coins on her necklace, she only used up one square to do it, right? He takes one of the sparkly squares out of his pocket, sits beside her bed, and wishes for: all the stars, hexes and pentagons on her necklace, off her necklace and visible and touchable and in his hands.

[self_composed]

Poof.

He has the fifteen pentagons and the one star in Elias's opal-hematite pattern.

And one glowy, red hex.