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Summary: Laurel wakes up in the hospital, with no memory of how she got there or what’s happened. Set one week after the Book 1 finale.

“Laurel?”

She thinks she tries to answer, but she can’t get the words out. It hurts to move, to try and speak, to even take a deep breath. Her arms feel heavy, leaden. She forces her eyelids open, slamming them back closed immediately when a blinding light hits them.

“Laurel. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

She knows that voice, though she can’t actually think of who it belongs to at the moment. But it’s soothing and familiar, and she lets herself relax and drift back off.

When Laurel wakes again, her room is dark. Some incoherent noise comes out of her mouth as she tries to speak. A voice she doesn’t recognize says her name.

“Water,” she finally manages to rasp, her tongue feeling like sandpaper.

“Of course,” someone says, bringing a straw to her mouth.

The water is cold, a little painful against her dry throat, but she sucks it down greedily, then drops back down to her pillow. She groans quietly as she experimentally tries to move her arms and legs, but they feel heavy and she doesn’t understand why. She’s vaguely aware of someone else bustling in to the room, of something cold against her back and chest, of being asked questions she doesn’t know the answers to: What day is it? Where are you? What’s the last thing you remember?

“I don’t know!” she finally cries out.

“What happened?” she manages to say, even as she feels her eyes start to drift closed again.

“Just rest, Miss Cassidy,” an unfamiliar voice says assuredly.

And despite her efforts to keep her heavy eyelids open, to demand answers, she drifts off again.

The third time Laurel wakes, she has the oddest sensation that she’s slept for days but still feels strangely exhausted. She manages to push herself upright, groaning and closing her eyes when she moves too fast and a wave of dizziness hits her. When it finally passes, she eases her legs over the side of the bed, grimacing when an alarm starts going off. It squawks obnoxiously right in her ear, until a nurse bustles into the room and gently scolds her as she turns the alarm blessedly off.

“You would be the type to try and escape,” someone chuckles from the doorway, and Laurel scowls, then smiles as she recognizes the figure standing there.

“Like you wouldn’t,” she says, and Kenji laughs again as he strolls into the room.

The nurses kick him out after an hour when she’s falling asleep again, even though she protests that he can stay.

She spends a week in the hospital. The doctors fill in what they can. She was found unconscious in a park nearby. It’s a busy park, but no one remembers seeing her arriving there, or anyone bringing her there, or anything out of the ordinary. Apart from a few scrapes and bruises, she doesn’t have any injuries. Her lab work is normal. There were no drugs in her system. For all of the tests and questions, all they could find was that she was mildly dehydrated. All of her memories up until being in the clocktower with Poppy and Dax are intact, but it frustrates her that she can’t remember anything after that.

Dax and Poppy fill her in on what the doctors can’t: the mayor’s press conference, Silas, how she disappeared and they couldn’t track her for a week before she mysteriously showed back up. She remembers none of it: flying out of the atmosphere with Silas, where she was, how she got back. As frustrating as it is losing those days, she’s even more frustrated at the feeling that she’s missing something big, something important that floods her with a sense of longing and makes her want to cry.

It comes to her one night, feeling hauntingly real: drinking bubbly champagne with Grayson; his lips against hers, gentle at first, then firmer; his hands lovingly exploring her skin; the feel of him moving against her. She wakes slowly, gradually realizing that it wasn’t a dream, but a memory. She remembers now, that night before the mayor’s press conference, and wonders why Grayson hasn’t stopped by to see her. When Poppy comes by in the morning, Laurel hesitantly asks her where he’s been.

“He was here,” Poppy reassures her. “The first day you woke up.”

The familiar voice, Laurel realizes.

“He’s been…busy,” Poppy says after a minute. “With his father, and trying to figure things out with the business. But he asks about you every day. Multiple times a day, actually.”

Laurel feels her breath catch at that, smiling faintly.

“I’ll tell him you said hi,” Poppy offers with a knowing smile, and Laurel flushes.

“Okay,” she says nonchalantly, but she knows Poppy can read her like a book.

Grayson shows up again the day before she’s released, and she lights up in spite of herself when he walks into the room. His smile is that same sweet, boyish smile she loves, despite everything going on in his life. He gently wraps her in a hug when he walks into the room, and Laurel finds herself holding on to him a little longer than necessary, his warmth and the scent of his cologne comforting.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been by,” Grayson apologizes, taking her hand. “Things have been a little crazy.”

“It’s okay,” she reassures him.

He asks if she needs anything just before he leaves, and she hesitates for just a second before asking if he can drive her home in the morning.

“Of course,” he says. “Whatever you need.”

A troubled expression crosses his face briefly. “What about Rochelle?”

“We’re…fine,” she says slowly. “I’m just tired of being bombarded with questions.”

Grayson smiles, brushing his lips over her forehead. “Well, I can’t promise I won’t ask any questions, but I’ll try not to ask too many.”

In the morning, she convinces the nurse to let her shower, sighing in relief at the feel of the hot water and getting into her own clothes. Grayson shows up right on time, helping her into his car and resting his hand over hers while they drive to her apartment. His thumb runs soothing circles over her skin, his touch so sweet and tender that it makes her ache.

When they get to her apartment, she sighs as she looks up at the building. “Is it weird that I really don’t want to stay here? It’s just…I don’t know,” she sighs.

Grayson squeezes her fingers. “You can stay at my place. If you want.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“It’s no trouble,” he promises.

“Are you sure?”

“Laurel,” he says, gently turning her head to look at him.

He brushes his hand into her hair, his thumb tracing over her cheekbone. “I told you I’m always here for you. I mean that. Anything you need.”

She rests her cheek against his hand, reaching up to tangle their fingers together. “Thank you.”

Grayson helps her pack a few things, then drives them to his apartment. He hesitates with her bag once they’re inside the door.

“I have a guest room…” he says.

“Oh.” Laurel swallows hard and steps forward, his chest nearly brushing hers on each exhale.

“Can I stay with you?” she asks, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

She doesn’t know what it is, knows he has feelings for her, has those same feelings for him. Even though he’s made love to her, there’s something more intimate about sharing his bed that makes her heart race in nervous anticipation.

“Of course you can,” he murmurs, tilting her chin up and kissing her sweetly.

As she changes into her pajamas in his spacious bathroom, she realizes suddenly that she hasn’t used her powers at all since showing back up from wherever she was, and is hit with fear that they’re gone. She locks the door and concentrates, sighing in relief when she easily levitates off the ground a few inches.

Grayson is bare chested when she walks back out, a pair of pajama pants resting low on his hips. She can’t stop herself from touching him, feeling his bare skin under her fingertips, reassuring herself he’s real. Laurel presses her lips softly to his chest, his arms secure around her waist. She hears him suck in a breath and glances up.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Don’t apologize. I just had to make sure you’re here and not just a dream.”

They climb into his bed, and Laurel sighs as she sinks into his mattress, his comforter soft and heavy as she burrows under it. They lay on their sides facing each other, his lips slightly parted as he looks at her, his thumb running slowly over her hip.

“Did you dream about me?” Grayson asks her, his tone gently teasing.

Laurel smiles, walking her hand around his waist and settling on his back, tracing over the lines of his muscles.

“Not exactly.”

Grayson looks at her curiously.

“I remembered,” she says quietly, then glances up at him. “I remembered you making love to me the night before the mayor’s press conference.”

He inches closer, tucking his thumb under her chin. “Yes,” he murmurs.

Laurel sighs in pleasure as he kisses her, his lips soft against hers.

“I remembered you kissing me like this.”

Her eyes drift close as he kisses her again. “I remembered you touching me.”

Grayson runs his hand gently down her side and around her back.

“I remembered how you felt,” she says, her voice trembling slightly as he gently lifts her thigh over his hip.

“I remembered how much I’d been wanting you,” she whispers, opening her eyes and staring at him as she cups his face in her hand.

“I’d been wanting you too, Laurel,” Grayson reassures her, tilting his head to kiss her deeply, his hand running through her hair.

He brushes his tongue over her lips and she opens up to him easily, sighing as she leans into him.

“Grayson?” she says when they pull apart.

“Yes?”

Her fingers trace over his chest as she tries to find the words.

“It’s okay, Laurel,” Grayson murmurs. “Whatever it is. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Swallowing hard, she looks up at him again. “I have to tell you something.”

Grayson studies her, his fingers stilling in her hair. “I know.”

The way he says it makes her heart beat faster. “You…know?”

“I figured it out,” he says gently. “You disappeared…Soteria disappeared. At the same time. Twice.”

She panics for a minute. “I…I didn’t want to lie to you, I just didn’t know how to-“

Grayson interrupts her with a gentle finger against her lips. “It’s okay, Laurel. I understand.”

“You do?” she asks in surprise.

Grayson sighs. “Maybe not entirely. But I understand why you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

He smiles, his hand resuming its motion through her hair. “You’re still you, Laurel. Just…”

“Upgraded?” she suggests jokingly.

Grayson chuckles, rolling onto his back and settling her against his chest. “Sure.”

He quietly laughs again after a few minutes. “So that night you came to my apartment and said you flew right past traffic…”

Laurel grins, nuzzling into him. “I literally flew right past traffic.”