Ambulances & Ares
“Run, Harry, go,” Sirius whispered, pushing Harry toward the tree line. “That creature is killing people. Get out of here!”
Harry shook his head, he couldn’t leave Sirius behind.
Even if Sirius and Harry wouldn’t be able to be a true family - both terrified of ever being imprisoned again - Harry couldn’t lose his only link to his parents, to the life he could have led.
Sirius had been living as a dog in caves in the forest, he’d stalked around outside the juvenile detention center, he taught Harry piano- Harry couldn’t lose him.
Harry wasn’t entirely sure, not yet, be he suspected that Sirius had been Harry’s first friend all along.
“Come with me,” Harry said. He felt his chest burning and every word felt forced and painful. The woods around him were blurring and Harry focused on Sirius, but even he looked like he was at the long end of a tunnel.
Sirius was saying something, possibly even shouting, but Harry shook his head to try and say he couldn’t hear him. It was like everything had gone fuzzy and mute and all Harry could hear was his own gasping breaths and pounding heart.
When Sirius shoved Harry toward the tree line again, Harry’s legs didn’t even work. He just fell over, scrapping his hands on the sticks and debris on the ground.
Everything moved slowly while Harry struggled to make his lungs work and his body respond.
The monster broke through the clearing and Sirius pulled a strip of wood from a bag he wore on a chain around his neck.
Sirius stepped in front of Harry, his body tense—
Was he protecting him?
Was there any point when Harry wasn’t breathing?
He should run, save himself.
Something bright and red shot from Sirius’ stick-
Was that magic?
Why didn’t Harry’s look like that?
Harry felt lightheaded and he struggled to not simply curl on his side. Every breath felt like it was coming through a very thin straw.
The monster roared and swiped at Sirius after his red magic bounced off its skin.
Sirius dodged the first swipe, but when he refused to move from in front of Harry the second one caught him across the chest and sent him flying in a spray of blood.
Harry tried to scream when Sirius hit the tree and slid to the ground with his eyes closed and his chest crying out on the dirt, but he didn’t know if it even worked or not.
The monster looked at Harry and Harry closed his eyes, preparing to die- accepting it really - and then everything went black.
*****
Wednesday knew when Lurch pulled up to the town square and threw the car in park that she wasn’t going to enjoy what she found.
Not simply dislike, but truly despise whatever she found.
And Wednesday despised most things, it was simply who she was to feel hatred and disdain as easily as others felt joy and contentment. But when they pulled up, Wednesday doubted if she had ever despised anything as much as she would whatever she discovered in the woods.
There were two ambulances with their back doors open and their lights flashing and three police cars all in the square, parked as close to the woods as possible. Wednesday wasn’t one for overt displays of affection, but she was inwardly relieved when Mother held her elbow and ran toward the woods with her.
“HARRY!” Wednesday yelled, bodily shoving aside the wall of uniformed officers. “HARRY!”
“Get back,” someone snapped, blocking Wednesday with their arm. Wednesday bit the arm in her way, throwing a sharp elbow toward their stomach for good measure, and sprinted to where she could see the limp body of Harry being lifted on a stretcher.
“What happened here?” Mother asked someone. “That boy is my nephew.”
Wednesday should have been looking around, taking stock of the scene and memorizing clues to whatever took place, but all she could see was Harry’s pale face and his white school shirt covered in blood.
“It’s not his blood.”
Wednesday wrenched her arm away when someone grabbed her wrist and she only spared a quick glance to the side where she saw Tyler beside her.
“What happened?” Wednesday asked him, quickly deducing that Tyler must have found Harry before she did or he rode with his father when someone called in an attack.
They began wheeling Harry toward an ambulance and Wednesday followed Harry with Tyler and Xavier trailing her while Mother remained behind with the other body.
“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “I got here and that other guy was bleeding and Harry was just… out. I called 911. They’re calling it a bear attack.”
The medical team loaded Harry in the ambulance and stopped to look at the three teenagers. “Are any of you family?”
“I am.” Wednesday climbed in the back of the ambulance swiftly and saw her mother climbing in the one with the other man covered in blood.
“Wait!” Xavier lunged forward and pushed something in Wednesday’s hand. “Call Tyler when you get there, let us know what’s going on.”
Wednesday would never apologize for suspecting Xavier of being the monster, but she did offer a curt nod as acknowledgment that he had not been the one to attack Harry and the other man.
It was likely he was still involved somehow, but Wednesday could only think of Harry while the ambulance roared toward the hospital and they began hooking wires to Harry.
“Tachycardia and hypertension,” the medical worker said.
Wednesday looked at the flashing numbers on the machine hooked up to Harry and saw the elevated heart rate as proof of life.
“Harry is prone to panic attacks,” Wednesday told them abruptly, recalling his panic when the Nightshade’s had placed hoods over their faces in their library. “Is he injured?”
Wednesday kept her eyes on Harry’s face while the man removed Harry’s clothing - a horribly invasive, yet logical choice - and then covered him with a blanket.
“A few light abrasions and lacerations, no life threats,” the medical worker said. “He might have fainted when the bear attacked the other guy.”
“It wasn’t a bear, it was a monster,” Wednesday said angrily. They would not diminish Harry’s panic to some infantile fit over bears.
The look that Wednesday received in response clearly indicated the medical worker’s belief in Wednesday’s sanity, but that wasn’t even a blip on Wednesday’s radar.
“Are you going to wake him or not?” Wednesday demanded just before they pulled in the emergency room with their lights and sirens running.
“No,” the worker said briskly, pushing past Wednesday to jump out of the back of the ambulance. The other stretcher with the man - Wednesday squinted at it but could not identify the man, Mother had seemed certain that it was not Harry’s father though - pushed ahead of them and the workers surrounding the man were running at full speed.
“Wednesday.” Mother reached out and held Wednesday back while the others pushed Harry forward. She tilted her head toward Wednesday’s and whispered quietly in her ear. “I told them that the man is Ares Frump, my brother.”
“Why?” Wednesday asked her. If the man was not Harry’s father, then he was an unknown entity and that made him dangerous, even if he hardly looked it in his current state.
Mother smiled slightly, an annoyingly mysterious look in her eyes. “I believe he is important to Harry, it seemed best until we can decipher what happened tonight.”
“I am going to tear apart the monster inch by inch,” Wednesday hissed.
Mother’s eyes glimmered darkly and her thumb smoothed across the back of Wednesday’s shoulder.
“We will tear them apart together,” she said. Her smile grew when she added, “As a family.”
Even in the midst of a false imprisonment, a murderous monster, and a mysterious man— Wednesday would never regret being a part of the Addams family.
*****
There was nothing and then there was an intense pain that caused Harry’s eyes to fly open and a yelp to escape his mouth.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. You know, I’m quite sick of seeing you in a hospital.”
Harry looked around but everything was blurry and his head felt slow. “Sirius?”
“Yes, I’m entirely serious.”
Harry couldn’t place the voice talking to him, but he knew he wanted to continue hearing it. The voice was feminine, cold, not Sirius though- was he dead?
“Run, Harry, go!”
“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled. He struggled to get out of the place he’d been restrained, he was tied down by wires and when he went to yank them off him, small and hard hands slammed Harry’s hands to his sides.
“Quit,” someone- Wednesday, Harry could squint without his glasses and make out Wednesday’s pale face and dark eyes only inches from his own face - snapped. “Do you remember what happened?”
Harry shook his head, trying to dispel the fog in it.
“They gave you medication to counter your outrageous anxiety,” Wednesday said, her voice soft now and reassuring. Her grip on Harry lessened to something more grounding than restraining. “They said you may feel disoriented. I didn’t want to wait for you to wake, so I sternum rubbed you to consciousness.”
Harry didn’t understand what Wednesday was talking about, but it didn’t matter.
“Sirius,” he whispered urgently. “Is he okay?”
“Oh.” Wednesday’s lips pursed for a moment. “Is that who the man is? Sirius Black?”
Harry flipped his hand and squeezed hers tightly. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, knowing it was important and forgetting why. “He’s free.”
“He was attacked. Mother is with him, they took him to surgery,” Wednesday told Harry. “I’m unsure if he’ll survive.”
Harry closed his eyes, the lights and the blurred images and the crushing weight feeling more than he could handle.
A small hand stroked the hair off Harry’s forehead.
“Rest now, I merely needed to see you were alive for myself.”
When Harry woke again, the fog in his head was gone and so were the wires hooked to his arm. The room was dark, but there was a light shining from an opened door that allowed Harry to squint around until he saw his glasses on the table beside him. When Harry reached for them, someone beat him to it.
“Here,” a familiar voice whispered, rough but warm.
Harry took his glasses and scooted to a sitting position while he slid them on. He looked over and saw Tyler standing beside him in an oversized hoodie with a police badge embroidered on the front.
“My clothes were covered in your uncle’s blood,” Tyler said quietly when he noticed what Harry was looking at. “I rode with my dad and just grabbed this from his trunk.” Tyler sat on the edge of Harry’s bed and smiled slightly. “How are you feeling?”
Harry looked around the room and realized it looked like a hospital room. Not the dim and spice scented room of the school nurse, but the white and septic scent of an actual hospital. There was a chair beside Harry’s bed, on the opposite side of the table that had his glasses on it, and the top of Wednesday’s head was barely discernible from beneath a white blanket.
“She wouldn’t leave,” Tyler said with a quiet chuckle. “She actually bit a deputy earlier.”
Harry grinned a little when it seemed like that was the response Tyler wanted, but overall Harry was confused.
“Where’s- where’s…” Harry trailed off, unsure how to ask for Sirius when he couldn’t use his name.
“Ares?”
“Who?” Harry asked, mystified. Had there been a third person in the woods? Was the monster named Ares?
“Uh… your uncle?” Tyler said slowly. He reached over and grazed Harry’s arm with his finger, leaving his hand there more firmly when Harry didn’t pull away. “You’re probably confused, they said you had a panic-induced fainting episode. Are you- are you feeling okay?”
Harry reached up with his free hand and touched his head, shaking it slowly.
“I’m confused,” Harry said. His throat scratched and he wished he had a drink. “My uncle?”
“Wednesday said that guy that got attacked is your guys’ uncle?” Tyler said, his nose crinkling. “Is he not?”
Harry couldn’t fathom why Wednesday would say Sirius was their uncle, but she was a hundred times more intelligent than he was, so he figured it was best to go with it.
“Is he okay?” Harry asked. He remembered talking with Sirius then the monster showing up. Sirius stood in front of Harry and the monster knocked him away with his claws, ripping his chest open and sending him flying.
Tyler’s fingers clenched on Harry’s arm. “He’s in critical condition. They had to do a lot of surgery. I’m- I’m sorry, Harry. I don’t know medical terms and I’ve stayed with you, but they’ve got Ares in the ICU.”
Harry swung his legs from his bed and cringed at the light green hospital gown he wore.
Was he always so… pale and scrawny?
Harry pushed away his embarrassment and got to his feet, only wobbling for a moment before Tyler jumped up and held on his arm.
“I need to see him,” Harry said quietly, not wanting to bother Wednesday. Tyler searched Harry’s eyes for a moment before nodding.
“Okay, act natural, I’ll sneak you out.”
Harry and Tyler slipped from Harry’s room, moving quickly and quietly in the corridors as they headed directly for the elevator. As soon as they were inside and Tyler pressed the button for the third floor, Harry frowned at the hoodie he wore again.
“Why did you have his blood on you?” Harry asked. Tyler wasn’t there before everything went black, Harry was sure of it.
“I was looking for you,” Tyler told him brazenly with a shrug. “Nobody had seen you all day so we were worried. I heard screaming in the woods and I found you unconscious on the ground and your uncle bleeding. I… Harry, I’m sorry,” Tyler said, looking directly in Harry’s eyes. Tyler’s eyes were blue under the fluorescent lights and uncomfortably intense. “I’m so sorry.”
Harry lifted his chin in a confused nod and suddenly Tyler’s lips were crashing on his, gentle despite the intensity Harry could feel behind the kiss.
“Sorry,” Tyler said again when the doors opened with a ding and Harry’s cheeks were pink.
“Don’t be,” Harry said shyly, with a small grin. As unsettling and horrifying as Harry’s entire day had been, it was nice to feel… well… nice.
Tyler flashed Harry a quick smile and then led him down the corridor until they found room 316.
“He’s in here,” Tyler said. He turned to Harry and raised a brow. “You ready?”
No.
Harry nodded.
Tyler nudged the door open and Harry felt like the ground was yanked beneath his feet when he saw the plethora of machines and wires, IV’s and tubes, hooked to Sirius’ body.
Sirius looked so small on the bed with a mask doing his breathing for him.
“He was trying- trying to protect me,” Harry whimpered. Harry stumbled forward and probably would have fallen if it hadn’t been for Tyler’s grasp on his arms. Harry moved beside Sirius and saw white bandages wrapped around his torso, spotted with red dots of blood from the injuries hidden beneath it.
“My dad‘s dead,” Harry told Tyler hoarsely while he looked for a part of Sirius he could touch without disrupting any machines and settling for his shoulder. “He’s all I have left of him…”
Harry fell to his knees beside the bed and Tyler sank down beside him.
“I’m so sorry, Harry.”
*****
Wednesday woke in a panic with Harry missing once more.
“You were meant to watch him,” she spat at Thing when she jumped to her feet. “Where did he go?”
Thing tapped the bed quickly, communicating through the shorthand code he preferred to utilize.
“Tyler took him to see Black?” Wednesday asked, yanking her boots on at his confirmation. “You should have followed them, Harry is a magnet for danger.”
“Very mature,” Wednesday added when Thing raised his middle finger. “How long have they been gone?”
Two hours was Thing’s rapid reply. Plenty of time for Harry to be attacked or go missing or any number of other terrifying alternatives. The elevator took too long and Wednesday chose to storm up the stairs instead, leaving the Emergency Room where Harry had been kept and moving toward the ICU where Black was.
The hospital staff told Weems when she arrived shortly after Harry had been brought in that he could be discharged after he woke and got assessed once more, but he was meant to be resting.
Tyler was terribly irresponsible and Wednesday knew that he was wrong for Harry.
Wednesday burst in Black’s room and was immediately hushed by her mother.
Mother sat in a large red chair, a cushioned recliner made for comfort more than the metal one that Wednesday had in Harry’s room, and curled up on her lap was Harry.
“Is he asleep?” Wednesday asked, stepping inside and closing the door. She looked around quickly and saw no one aside from Black on the bed. Considering it was nearly five am, possibly the sheriff finally made his son return home.
“He is,” Mother said. She was stroking Harry’s hair in a way reminiscent of when Pugsley had been young and needed physical comfort. Harry looked small on Mother’s lap, vulnerable in a way that Wednesday didn’t despise.
“How is your brother?” Wednesday asked sarcastically, giving Harry privacy to absorb her mother’s comfort while looking toward the man from the forest.
“It will be touch and go for a while,” Mother said remorsefully. “They’re unsure if his heart will operate on its own once they disconnect the ECMO.”
“Nightshade poisoning,” Wednesday told her mother while she moved to stand beside Black.
“Pardon?”
“Nightshade poisoning would make Garret foam at the mouth and behave erratically,” Wednesday explained. It came to her while she rested in Harry’s room. Nightshade poisoning would explain Garret Gates’ death and the multiple changes in the coroners report. Wednesday would bet that the original report stated it and the ‘suicide’ note from the coroner changed the cause of death.
Which meant that whoever shot the coroner had planned to mask it as a suicide and frame her father for a murder in one fell swoop. It was cunning, and Wednesday could respect that, but it imprisoned her father and thus made it unforgivable.
“How do we prove it?” Mother breathed, the acceptance in her voice showing that she trusted Wednesday’s assessment and agreed.
Wednesday sighed. “We dig Garret up and obtain new proof.”
And as it was only a couple hours away from Father’s relocation to the state prison, it meant that Wednesday was going to have to do a truly distasteful task.
She patted down her jacket pocket until Thing tapped her ankle and held up Xavier’s phone.
“Thank you,” Wednesday told him. She navigated Xavier’s phone easily and found the contact she needed.
“Hello, Tyler. It’s time to wake up, someone needs to stay with Harry for a few hours.”
*****
Harry was discharged from the hospital before seven on Sunday morning and Principal Weems offered to drive him back to school after Harry was dressed. He was grateful that Tyler brought him clothes, since his had been soaked in Sirius’ blood, but he looked short in the taller boy’s sweatpants.
Harry struggled to force himself to look directly in Principal Weems’ eyes the way she liked him to do and cleared his throat.
“Ma’am, may- may I stay for a while?” Harry asked nervously. “I’d like to sit with, er… my uncle.”
Principal Weems rubbed Harry’s shoulder kindly, her face soft and warm. “You may, if you promise to eat. You look peaky, Harry. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry agreed.
Principal Weems smiled and nodded. “Would you like me to pick you up before noon? I don’t want you walking back, these attacks have gotten out of control.”
“I can drive him back, ma’am,” Tyler offered, stepping forward from the corner of the room where he’d been standing. He gave Principal Weems a charming smile. “I promise to keep him safe from bears or monsters.”
Principal Weems hummed and tilted her head at Tyler for a moment. “You do that, Mister Galpin. Harry, come see me in my office after lunch, please. You aren’t in trouble,” she added quickly. “I’d merely like to talk with you.”
Harry agreed more to hurry back to Sirius than out of any desire to sit and have a talk with the principal of his school. Regardless, Harry made his way back to Sirius’ room with Tyler.
“You don’t have to stay,” Harry told him.
Tyler shrugged, “I don’t have anywhere else I’d rather be.”
It was small, probably a meaningless sentiment, but Harry reached over and entwined his fingers with Tyler’s, grateful he was there.
Unlike Wednesday and her mum who told Tyler to tell him they went to free Wednesday’s dad and would meet him back at Nevermore.
Harry was moderately glad that Wednesday’s mum wasn’t there, he felt rather stupid for falling apart the first time he’d made his way to Sirius’ room and let her rock him on her lap. It was comforting and Harry felt like he had a mum for the first time in his life, but then he woke up more ashamed than he’d ever been for acting like a baby and sobbing all over the elegant looking woman.
Sirius’ room was noisy with the beeping machines, but Harry still pulled up a chair and sat beside him. He studied the tattoos on Sirius’ bared torso above the bandage. There was a quarter moon tattooed just above his right clavicle and a pair of antlers on the other side.
Harry wondered what the meaning behind the tattoos were; he wondered if he would ever get the chance to ask.
At eight, nurses came to take ‘Ares Frump’ for a post-op procedure on his heart and Tyler convinced Harry to leave the hospital long enough to fulfill his promise to Principal Weems on eating something.
“You and your Uncle Ares are close?” Tyler asked while they drove to the Weathervane for coffee and muffins.
Harry wasn’t sure who came up with the false name for Sirius, but it sounded peculiar to hear.
“Er… not really,” Harry said hesitantly while they drove from the hospital to the downtown area. “We hadn’t seen each other in a while.”
A lie, apparently. Harry hadn’t seen Sirius in three years, but Sirius had seen Harry every day.
“I really hope he gets better, Harry,” Tyler said earnestly, his voice empathetic and genuine.
“Me too,” Harry sighed. He gave Tyler a small grin that felt difficult to muster when they pulled up to the Weathervane. “Do you not get sick of coffee?”
“So much,” Tyler laughed. He parked in front of the store and jumped out, walking around the car and opening Harry’s door before he could even touch the handle. “But I never get sick of that sweet employee discount,” he winked.
Harry’s grin was a little more genuine then, but short lived. Tyler held open the door to the coffee shop and the two of them were about to enter when a police siren down the road caught Harry’s attention.
As much as Harry wanted to hurry back to the hospital and sit by Sirius until he had to return to Nevermore, it seemed like he had other places to be. Because stepping out of the back of the police car, in handcuffs, were Wednesday and her mum.
“I’ll just get coffee to go,” Tyler murmured, spotting the same thing Harry did.
Harry pushed his thumb against his forehead harshly, fighting off the headache the doctor told him he might have from falling over the night before.
“And a muffin?” Harry asked hopefully.
Tyler laughed and made Harry’s chest feel warm in a pleasant way. “And a muffin,” he said.