✓ dark blue -h.s. au- short story

8 "off at midnight."

[listen to the song please. if, by chance, it doesn't play, you can look it up on YouTube. It's called Poacher's Timing and it's by Aiden Grimshaw.]

C E C I L Y

She's lucky. That's what everyone keeps telling her.

But she's standing over Harry's bed and why can't he be lucky too? She hasn't told anyone about what she knows. Doesn't even know if she believes it herself.

But she's standing over him and he's sleeping. He has a tube down his throat and an IV beside him. There's a mirror over his bed and she looks at it for a moment because there's a gray glare over her eyes that looks like a mask.

She thinks it's a gray glare but then she picks it up. Because the eyes of the person trapped in the glass have colored irises that aren't at all blue. The girl's eyes are gray and silver and not at all dark blue like hers. And the girl's hair is a faded brown like all of the color was sucked dry from it. Surely Cecily's hair is still dark, dark brown.

And surely her eyes don't shift from dark blue to gray. She sticks out her tongue and watches as the person on the other side of the mirror does the same.

"Are you okay?"

Cecily turns toward the sound, eyes widening as she looks at Niall who's standing in the doorway, deep bags under his eyes like he hadn't had much sleep.

Her first reaction is to forget about the mirror and walk over to him, ignoring the object as it collides with the floor and shatters.

When she's close enough, her arms open and he pulls her in for a much needed hug. "They're all like this, aren't they?"

"They say Harry's close to waking up."

"And everyone else? What about Liam?"

"He's in the room above. He's not waking up any time soon."

She prepares to open her mouth, but she sees Niall's eyes widen as he pushes her back a little.

Then she turns her head toward Harry.

The body on the bed starts spasming. His chest locking and releasing, mouth slightly agape as he continues to shake.

Cecily holds onto his arm as it happens. She holds on to him and keeps her eyes on his closed ones. She can see his eyes moving behind the thin skin of his eyelids.

A doctor walks in and tries to nudge her aside, but when Harry stops moving, it takes her a moment to realize that his eyes are wide open and they're gaze is stuck on the ceiling.

"Harry?"

She's shoved out of the door with Niall. Only Niall regains himself and she falls to the floor with an impact that makes her lose her breath.

"His eyes were open," she says, voice straining against the silence in the hallway. The lights are dull and the floors are empty. "Is he awake? Is that what that means? He's waking up?" She walks back to the door knob, trying to get it to budge.

"I don't know. Let's wait for them to stabilize him. We can't go inside." His hands push hers away from the door.

She nods and then looks at him. "Okay. Okay, let's wait."

And with that, they take a seat on the floor.

&

&

&

She's sitting on the chair next to him. One of the doctors picked up the glass she dropped on the floor hours before.

Cecily has been looking at his eyes for a while now, though he hasn't said one word yet. She thinks something went wrong. Thinks he may not even be alive.

But then her thoughts are disturbed by the sound of a voice. A voice that's so distantly familiar that she knows where it's coming from.

"It was New Year's Eve and you were coughing up water next to me on a gurney. The firemen were trying to get the water out of you and you had like, this birthmark on the side of your neck that looked like the letter oh."

Cecily drops her eyes on Harry's. His hands are wrapped around the bars around the bed like he wants to get up. She unties them because he's too weak to sit up and she thinks he looks healthier lying down.

When her eyes drop to the floor, she begins to remember what he's talking about. It all comes to her in waves of red white and blue. Everything comes to her in the form of rippled water as the memory passes in her mind.

She's seeing a bloody Harry strapped down in the back of a truck. She's seeing specks of green glass lodged into his skin and she's feeling cold all over.

And then she's hearing him.

"You fell on something, didn't you? You were bleeding a lot. I think your head was bleeding too."

"I slipped on ice during a party. I think my bottle busted."

"I fell into a lake when I was with my friend. He tried to get me out, I think."

His eyes meet hers. "My watch went off at midnight."

She smiles. "And you wished me a happy new year."