All the air in Gabrielle’s lungs escaped her, she realized that all of what she thought was a dream last night was real. Even her getting up in the middle of the night, which she also thought was a dream. It was all too much for her to handle, Though her body tried to breath in, her throat was closed shut. She felt the room go cold, and time stopped for her. All the memories she had rushed back, the cherry tree, the promise they made, all those years at school rushed by in her head, until the day she left. She could still see the old Skyler reaching out to her, begging her not to go, and him fading from her vision as she turned away for that last time.

He looked like what she saw in the vision she had before when he was leaning over her, only he had a long black scarf wrapped around his neck. He didn’t look surprised at all, like he knew she would be there. Her throat started working again, and a gasp finally escaped her lips as cool air filled her lungs. She felt numb, like her body was jelly, her head felt heavy, and her legs felt weak, like they could give in at any second.

With her lungs full, Gabrielle tried to speak. “I-”

“Ten years,” Skyler said, his voice warm and full of relief, like he had been trapped inside for that long. “It’s been a long, hard ten years. You have no idea how glad I am that we could finally meet up again, it feels like an eternity since last I saw you,” he said softly. Gabrielle wondered why he said he hadn’t seen her for ten years when he was in Elega with her just yesterday.

Dr. Gage walked up to Skyler, a smile still on his face. “It seems you two know each other, Gabrielle is the new nurse here, she’s been assigned to your aunt for her first task today, I want you to show her to the room she’s staying in.”

“Aunt? I thought you hated your family.” Gabrielle was surprised. Back in school he constantly talked about getting away from his family. His mother was an alcoholic, and his father believed in very archaic ways of discipline, both of which were obviously child abuse. He never told anyone but her about it, though, and somehow his parents were able to fool Child Protective Services. He was forced to wait until he was eighteen before he was able to move out.

“It’s complicated, I’ll tell you more about it later.” Skyler walked past her and through the hallway, she turned around and followed him.

“I’m just surprised, after all this time, I mean, you resented-”

“Elaine had nothing to do with that, my old family knew, my new one is different,” he retorted, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.

“So CPS finally caught up to them and you got into foster care after all? I’m so glad, I always hated how your parents treated you.”

“Something like that” he mumbled.

“Wait a second, this is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about this.” She stopped walking and checked to see if the markings were still there, sure enough, they were. She held up her hand and pointed to the markings around her ring finger. “You did this. Why?”

“How did you find out?”

“I had a vision of you doing it while I was still asleep on Elega.”

“Are you sure you can trust visions like that?”

“Don’t try to fool me, I want this removed,” she said, urgency in her voice.

“You don’t want to go back to Elega? You still aren’t strong enough to be awake there without it.”

“W-well when I’m strong enough then.” she stuttered

Skyler leaned over and whispered, “Those markings aren’t just to give you enough magic to stay awake, it’s there to tell anybody who wants to hurt you to leave you alone, it’s protection. I don’t care how many weird looks you’ll be getting, that place is too dangerous to not have it, especially with what title I think you got.”

“How did you even learn to do something like this?”

“I studied enough of it under an expert, my Aunt knows her.” Skyler gestures for her to keep walking. “Speaking of Elaine, come on, we should go see her now, we can argue about the markings later.”

They headed to room 204 and went inside, and on the hospital bed lay a short and young looking girl with long stringy white hair and claws on her hands and feet. She looked almost skeletal, with skin pulled tightly over her bones and with barely any muscle or meat left on her. On top of being hooked up to a heart monitor, she was intubated and fitted with a feeding tube.

“How awful,” Gabrielle whispered to herself.

“She’s been like this for about a week, and hasn’t woken up since she got here. She was using every spell and potion under the sun just to keep functioning before, now she’s not allowed to use magic at all until she gets better, or she might die,” Skyler grimly explains. Gabrielle went over to the end of Elaine’s bed and took the clipboard from its place. She had been under a curse that was slowly eating away at her for years, and it only recently broke, prompting her to come here for treatment.

“How will we know if she uses it?” Gabrielle asked, staring at Elaine’s file.

“There’s a device in this room that senses when magic is used, it’ll sound an alarm if it catches anything. Dr. Gage will fill you in on what you need to do if that happens.”

“Why’d he entrust walking me through this to you?”

“Because I’ve been taking care of her until now. The hospital was low on staff until you came around, and this place is big, all of the nurses were spread a bit too thin for the amount of care she needs,” Skyler said while taking his large black scarf off and slinging it over his shoulder.

“That’s weird, why isn’t there more staff here?” Gabrielle put away the clipboard and started to check over all the machinery Elaine was hooked up to.

“It’s harder to take care of non-humans than it is to take care of regular humans, a lot of people aren’t cut out for the job, and it’s a lot more dangerous too. Ever since technology got past a certain point and magical creatures started appearing, hospitals like this started popping up to accommodate them, due to supply and demand, but I’ve heard of entire hospitals being destroyed because of a patient they couldn’t handle, and they had to start all over. That’s why hospitals like this are very understaffed.”

“I would have thought that more people would want to work here what with all the progress being made,” Gabrielle said with a  frown.

“Well until all the security kinks are worked out, not a lot of people feel that it’s very safe.”

“There’s always as much risk as there is reward, I don’t understand,” she said, exasperation in her voice.

“I’m not saying I’m against anyone doing it, I’m just saying that a majority of people are selfish,” Skyler said coldly.

“You need to have more faith in humanity then,” she said with worry in her voice. She had hoped that he was alright while she was gone, but the way he said that made her immensely concerned.

“After what I’ve been through since you left? It’s hard to have any faith at all,” Skyler grumbled, putting his hands in his pockets. “Nevermind what I said, how is she?”

Gabrielle continued to look over the machines Elaine is connected to, all the while thinking up all sorts of nightmare scenarios that could have happened to Skyler while she was gone that would make him act like that. “Her vitals are all stable, except her blood pressure is low.”

“Thanks, I’ll leave you to it. See you later.” Skyler turned around and started to walk out of the room.

“Wait.” she stood up and turned to him, she felt so bad about not being there that she was desperate to make it right somehow going forward.

“What is it?”

“When will I see you again?” she asked, wanting to make sure she didn’t lose him again.

Skyler turns his head and grins. “In your dreams,” he said, and walked out.