My heart’s in my throat as I lift her up, carefully wrap a bathrobe around her, and then bring her down to medical to find out what thefuckjust happened.
“Stress, probably,” the doctor deduces. “Any sharp change in routine for a patient with her history could have staggering physiological effects. She’s not ill or injured; my guess is her mind’s waging a war on her body.”
“Her routine isimproving,” I grit out, staring at Ember, who’s tucked into the bed, still passed out. “She’s slept for a few nights in a row, and…” I scratch the back of my head. “I think she has memories. She did the first time she slept through the night, anyways. She rememberedme.”
The doctor thinks for a few moments, rocking back on his heels. “A sharp shift in environment and schedule can sometimes have this effect on patients with retrograde amnesia. That’s why it’s highly recommended for them to spend time around the things and people they’ve forgotten; it can prompt the brain to retrieve those memories. Sometimes, relive them in a fugue state. This isn’t unheard of.” He nods at her. “What was her reaction to the first memory received during sleep? Was it similar?”
I shake my head. “Not remotely. She was confused, a little dazed, but she wasn’t emptying her entire digestive system into a toilet.”
“Did you happen to glean what sort of dream she may have had last night?”
Considering what she said about Dagon… “Potentially reliving a trauma.” I wince.
“That’s it, then.” The doctor nods. “PTSD is well known to impact patients in a plethora of unpleasant ways. Combine this with herhead injury, routine change, and release of new memories, and it’s not surprising she felt ill. The good news is, she’s perfectly fine. The not-so-good news is that there will be an adjustment period if you hold her to this routine, during which she may experience such symptoms again.”
I swallow. He’s essentially telling me that evenhealingher will have bad side effects. “Are they temporary?”
“Yes. The question ishowtemporary. It could be days or weeks, but in rarer cases… this could last months or years.”
Can I keep putting Ember through that? Playing Russian roulette every time I fuck her to sleep, knowing she might wake up physically sick and exhaust herself?
It doesn’t feel like I have much of a choice, but the idea weighs on me.
“What do I do after?” I ask.
“Wait for her to settle, then hydrate and feed her. If she isn’t properly hydrated and fed, she’ll get genuinely ill. Light foods at first, but keep them nutritious. For PTSD cases, self-care and self-soothing is immensely important.”
“Should I wake her up?” I ask, wiping at some sweat on the back of my neck. This morning has already been a stressful one. Ember’s so strong, so fiery, sometimes it’s easy to forget that she’s been broken in countless ways and has a fragility that she does her damn best to hide.
“You can. I’d let her sleep it off, however. Her vitals are all stable and her scans are fine—she’ll be okay. This is how healing often goes. Sometimes it hurts before it gets better.” There’s a weariness in the doctor’s tone that suggests he knows a thing or two about this.
I don’t press, and he doesn’t offer. Instead, I scoop Ember up, hold her tight to my chest, and take her back to our rooms.
Like the last time Ember passed out on me, I’m a wreck until she wakes up again. I can scarcely get any work done, but I give it my best shot. I sit next to her with my laptop in front of me, and try to work through some administrative bullshit Cain’s assigned me.
As of now, he, I, and Greyson all handle the books—which is a pretty shitty setup, considering none of us are mathematicians. I’m good, but I don’trevelin dealing with this crap. Nevertheless, I crunch our quarterly numbers until the screen starts to blur and the numbers begin jumbling.
Thankfuck, that’s just about when Ember begins stirring restlessly on the sheets. I shut the laptop and shift to face her head-on, stroking my hand through her hair. Her eyes flutter, then blink open, and she gives me a sleepy once-over.
“Hey,” I murmur. “How are you feeling, Flame?”
Her eyes shut again. I think she might be considering her response, but then, she speaks. “Hungry and thirsty. Feels like I haven’t eaten in a year.”
There’s my Flame.
“I’ll order something up. Can you open your eyes for me, please?”
She opens one eye, giving me a cranky look. “Where’s my food?”
I pull out my phone and send a quick text. “It’ll be up in fifteen.” I grab a large bottle of water from the nightstand and hand it over, watching as she sits up, unscrews the cap, and gulps it down.
“You scared me this morning.”
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t do well with normal human routines.”
“Could be because you haven’t experienced them in quite some time,” I say carefully. “This is an adjustment period, Flame, but I think it’s worth it.”
The look she gives me speaks to bone-deep exhaustion. Not just physical;emotional. I slowly pick up her hand in mine. “What did you dream about?” I already have a sickening sense of what she’s going to say before she says it.
