awickedtime | Aftermath

For Rosie, everything passes in a daze once the four of them meet up and start their way back to the city. The snow is melting fast, but there's still a bite in the air; with Nick taking care of Sabrina, she stays close to Charlie as they hurry down the mountain road. It doesn't feel like much, her arm around him as they walk and a few murmured encouragements, but it's the best she's able to provide, overwhelmed as she is by the last few days. It's only when they get to Nick's building--when they're in the elevator with the doors slid shut and the car making its slow way up to the top floor, even--that she allows herself to think they're all finally safe.

"Thank you," she says to Nick, looking over at him as she comes inside, helping Charlie to a chair in the living room. "I think we need all of that. I need all of that, at the very least."

Charlie sags into the seat. His ribs ache from the newest of the bruises, deliered when the goblins were sure that Sabrina wasn't watching. He nods up at her, his eyes drifting past her to Nick and Sabrina.

"I think all of us need that," he says. "And we're all...we're all staying here tonight, right?"

More than anything, Charlie wants to feel safe.

Sabrina herself has been unusually quiet, nearly silent once she'd awoken in Nick's arms, on their way down the mountain. If it weren't for the fact that she can feel bits of magical energy buzzing in her palms, she'd wonder if she'd left it all there. She fades in and out, conscious but not entirely there, curled up against Nick's shoulder-- every so often rousing enough to make sure everyone is accounted for in their little group.

Once in the apartment, Salem had immediately gone for a space near a heating vent, where he cleans himself in preparation for a nap.

She nods, though it's not clear who she's responding to when she says, "Yes, please."

Nick shifts Sabrina's weight in his arms, pausing for a moment. "You need to get clean and out of that dress, babe," he says, quietly. "Why don't you and Rosie go and shower, and I'll sort out fresh clothes for you and get you some food while I'm doing that. The bed in my room is big enough for all of us. I've got a TV in there too."

Her own dress--the same clingy red one she'd been given for her first meeting with Sabrina--is filthy after days of wear, torn and stained from her escape. Rosie wants nothing more than to be free of it, to be warm and clean and dressed in whatever comfortable, borrowed things Nick can find. The sooner that happens, the sooner she'll be able to feel truly done with everything she's had to endure.

Despite a faint blush at the idea of the two of them showering together, she follows Nick as he carries Sabrina into the bathroom. "Here," she says, letting Sabrina loop an arm around her shoulders as Nick starts to set her down. "We've got you." She looks up at Nick and manages a faint smile before turning her attention back to her friend.

Sabrina glances worriedly at Charlie as she's carried off into the bathroom, but already there's cat-shaped movement in his direction, and she focuses again on needing to get cleaned up and out of dramatic, magical clothes.

She gives Nick an exhausted smile and a light kiss on the mouth as she's set down, most of her weight transferring to Rosie for a moment. "Thank you," she murmurs to both of them. "I'm going to need some help with the dress, I think. I'm not sure how long before it changes back, honestly."

It had also definitely been about making a point rather than keeping her warm, and she's glad for the body heat all around her.

Nick wraps his arms gently around her, taking most of her weight so that Rosie can start working on the fastens on the back of the dress.

"Once we get you out of this, you guys can get clean. Charlie can wait a little while. I think I can hear him snoring from here."

"I think I can too," Rosie says, laughing softly in a way that almost surprises her. "Unless that's actually Salem purring."

There's a row of small, fiddly hooks running up the back of the dress; carefully, Rosie starts to undo them, her fingers working as quickly as she can manage under the circumstances.

"Could be both," Sabrina tells them, though the evidence of Charlie safe and sound lets the last of the tension drain from her, and she leans into Nick, arms loose around his shoulders.

She sighs a little as the hooks release, dropping one arm to let the sleeve slide down and her hand pull through, and then the other, wrapping both arms around Nick's shoulders again. Leaning in for modesty's sake as Rosie gets the last of the little fastenings near her waist, she's still very tired, but a little less wobbly, a little more coherent.

"They didn't exactly leave undergarments out, so once the dress is off, I'm ready for the shower. Rosie, do you need help?"

Nick keeps her cradled close, pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt as Rosie works on the dress.

"I can leave you two to it if you want me to, Rosie," he says.

"Mine isn't as...complex as yours," she tells Sabrina as she undoes the last of the hooks, blushing again at the pale and unbroken line of Sabrina's revealed back. "I should be able to take it off on my own."

Once that happens, she'll be just as ready--apparently--for the shower as Sabrina is, the goblins having failed to provide her with anything more than the dress she's wearing. She doesn't mention it; just looks at Nick again with another grateful smile. "We can manage from here, I think," she says. "I'll get her into the shower first, then change out of this."

"There are towels in the cupboard," he says. "And I'll leave clean clothes out for both of you. Use anything in there you want. And shout if you need me. Either of you." Worry fleets across his face. "Promise."

Sabrina sighs again, relieved as the last of the hooks are unfastened and the dress hangs open on her hips. She remains burrowed against Nick for a moment, pressing her face into his neck and nodding. "We've got it," she finally says, pulling away, but as her back is to Rosie, not bothering to cover herself.

"We'll try not to use up all the hot water," she adds. thumbing at her lipstick to see if it comes off. She's no longer exactly sure what's glamour and what's not.

"Love you," she adds softly, to Nick, as she begins to wriggle out of the rest of her dress.

"Thank you," she says as he turns to go, closing the door behind him. Rosie glances at Sabrina, making sure she's still steady enough without Nick's presence, then averts her eyes again and goes to the shower to turn on the water. It takes a bit of guesswork, a few twists of the dial to get it to the right temperature, but once it's on and heating up she moves the few steps back to Sabrina.

"Come on," she says, taking her hand and leading her to the shower, helping her in and under the hot spray. "I won't be a minute, I promise." She slides the curtain closed, then peels off her own dress. Though it's a relief to be free of it, there's now nothing to hide the bruises scattered over her legs and back, the new one blooming on her stomach from the last goblin who'd hit her only a few hours ago. She looks at herself in the mirror for a long moment, blinking back a sudden wave of tears, then pulls the shower curtain back and steps in to join her friend.

Sabrina watches in some amazement as soot and goblin blood-- though there's more ash and soot for her, courses from her skin. She'd done such a good job of keeping clean, she thinks, until the end there. It's a bit of a strange thought, but she's not entirely prepared to deal with the part where playing along with Darkness had aided her far more than struggling for balance ever had.

Her attention is pulled by Rosie, and while a week of serving Prudence Night hand and foot and in the bath has made her much less shy, she can't help seeing those bruises and clapping her hand to her mouth.

"I should have killed more of them. Oh, Rosie, I'm sorry, are you-- how bad is the pain?"

At first, she keeps an arm crossed over her breasts and her eyes downturned, focusing only on the tile of the shower floor and the swirl of dirt and everything else making its way down the drain; a silly concession to modesty, maybe, when they're both far too exhausted for it to matter much. But when she hears Sabrina gasp, she looks up, shifting her focus from the floor to her friend's astonished face. "You killed plenty," she murmurs, shifting a little more under the spray of the water, letting it course down her back and dampen her hair. "Most of these are...from before they brought me to you. They look worse than they feel, really."

Rosie does let her arm drop then, her hand going to the fresher, angrier bruise purpling on her belly. "Except this one," she admits, pressing a little at it and wincing. "This one's new."

While she doesn't know if she could have done anything else, Sabrina still feels like she should have. "When my magic feels less wobbly, maybe Nick and I can take turns with that. For Charlie too."

She leans against the wall of the shower, and after a moment, reaches for the shampoo.

"Salem says he took care of some of them too, the goblins. He's very offended," she says, as she starts to scrub it through her hair, "that they share a common name. Familiars being goblins that take animal form."

"I won't say no if you want to try," Rosie says, picking up the bottle of shower gel and a washcloth and starting to scrub the grime of the last few days off her skin. "Later, once you've both had time to rest."

She thinks then of the few attempts at healing they'd both made back at the castle; of Sabrina's lips on her cheek and the slow, suffusing warmth of Nick's hands as he whispered an incantation into the dark. It hadn't been much either time, just a gentle easing of small hurts, but it had meant more in those moments than anything else. Smiling a little, she rinses off, lets herself simply enjoy the faint, warm scent of Nick's soap and the heat of the water.

"Oh, Salem absolutely took care of them," she says after a moment, her stomach making a small and involuntary lurch at the memory of how well he'd dispatched the ones keeping her locked away. It had all been for her benefit, she knows, but Rosie still found it hard to reconcile the shadowy figure she'd seen with the cat now curled up and purring in Nick's living room. "And I wouldn't blame him for being offended. He's a much better goblin than any of them. My favorite goblin, even."

Rosie laughs softly at that, and reaches for the shampoo.

"Later," Sabrina agrees. She'll want a look at Charlie's injuries as well, and she knows she's going to need to rest before she can help him. There's a moment here, where her heart suddenly squeezes so tightly in her chest that she can barely breathe-- even if she and Nick can expect injuries to heal quickly when they happen, or avoid illness, or avoid aging, to some extent-- she loves so many mortals, and they will not.

It's a thought she knows she's been pushing aside, and while she's not going to bring it up now, there's still some tears washing away with the ash and make-up on her face.

"He'll be glad to have had you all see him that way, vain creature," Sabrina says, and she's suddenly so tired again. It's a push to finish getting clean, and she's sure to wipe away a little spot at the nape of Rosie's neck that seems to have been missed before she gets out.

"I'll be sure to praise him appropriately and tell him he was a very fearsome sight," she promises. And goblin or no, she may well give him a scratch behind his fuzzy ears as she does so.

She'd had her eyes closed as she rinsed the shampoo suds from her hair, so Rosie misses the first flash of grief that crosses Sabrina's face. Once finished, seeing the faint red rims of her friend's eyes and the slight wobble of her lip, she breathes out a soft sigh. Sabrina doesn't explain, and Rosie doesn't say anything either, just reaches for her, taking her hand; a brief, grounding moment of contact that's maybe a little silly given where they are. She doesn't particularly care.

They both finish getting clean and warm, and it takes Rosie a bit of effort to turn the water off and put an end to the respite of the last several minutes. She makes another soft, involuntary sound at the gentle scrub of Sabrina's fingers against her neck, turning her head to smile at the other girl as she gets out of the shower.

Sabrina squeezes Rosie's hand as she goes, and then she's out of the shower, wrapping herself up in towels and looking for a comb. She finds it, and tapping it smartly against her hand, she pulls herself the rest of the way back together.

"Do you want me to stay in here until you're done?" Sabrina asks, going about untangling her hair with the comb, one ear pricked for whatever is going on outside the bathroom door. It feels somehow important to be able to hear everyone, if she can.

"Please," Rosie says, wishing the word didn't sound quite so feeble and pleading as it left her mouth. "I'm almost finished."

She stands under the water for another minute before turning it off and pulling the curtain back. There were towels, thick and plush, in the cabinet Nick had indicated before he'd left; she wraps herself up in one, then twists another around her hair. It's such a normal, automatic gesture, something she'd done countless times before, and she's almost surprised at how comforting it is in this moment.

Taking a seat on the closed lid of the toilet, she waits for Sabrina to finish combing her hair. "Let's get changed," she says. "Nick said he'd leave clothes for us." She looks down at their old dresses, two crimson pools on the floor of the bathroom, and wrinkles her nose. "Anything's bound to be better than those."

Sabrina takes her time with her hair, which needs a little more untangling than she'd expected. "It's okay," she says automatically, answering Rosie. "I'm right here."

As soon as she's finished, with Rosie ready to get dressed too, Sabrina nods and rises, leading the way back out and into the bedroom where the clothes should be. "Honestly, I can't say I'm too upset about the lack of a bra," she tells Rosie, glad to stretch and move freely, without a tight bodice holding her.

She's quick to dress, focus shifting to seeing if Charlie's awake, if Nick needs anything. Throwing a tired smile back at Rosie, she pads out into the living room on bare feet.

Charlie has been dozing in the armchair, listening to the sounds of the girls in the bathroom, the rhythm of Nick making food in the kitchen. He's warm and comfortable, his skin cleaned with a cloth, Nick's sweatpants a little short, but his shirt more than big enough. When Sabrina walks into the room, he opens his eyes, smiling up at her.

"You look beautiful," he says, his voice still slightly rough.

The t-shirt and sweatpants Nick's left out are loose and comfortable, and Rosie changes into them with relief--and a slight bit of awkwardness at first, though it passes quickly. She's too tired and too overwhelmed by the last few hours to feel it for long. Unwinding the towel from her hair, she carries it and the others over to the hamper by Nick's closet before going back out to the living room.

Casting a smile at Sabrina and Charlie, already curled around one another in the armchair, she settles onto the couch and pulls a throw blanket over her legs. Whatever Nick's cooking smells amazing; just as she's thinking of asking about it, her stomach growls. "Oh, good grief," she murmurs, laughing softly.

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