Endure and Survive | Larry Stylinson

last chapter

SPRING

"Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true." -Ellie.

Everything hurts.

Harry doesn't know if he got tortured during his unconsciousness, with them taking advantage of it and hurting him as much as possible. But when he wakes up, he's in a hospital bed and not tied in a chair on a scary room. A normal, hospital bed, with...with electricity and clean shit and no strange smells.

It almost feels like the very first time he was in a hospital, but when he looks to his side, he sees Eleanor, and a stranger he assumes to be the soldier who knocked him out and took him away.

Took him away... took... fuck, where's Louis? Harry bolts right up, but he groans and clutches at his head as the blood rush all the way up. Eleanor speaks up, "Welcome to the Fireflies. Sorry about the... they didn't know who you were."

"Where's Louis?"

"He's alright. I was quite surprised when I saw you two. How'd you do it?" Eleanor asks, and she has this expression on her face that Harry doesn't bother recognizing.

"It was all him." Harry shakes his head, "Fought like hell to come all the way here."

Eleanor crosses her arms and leans back towards her seat, "I pretty much lost everything with my men crossing the country dying and what not. And then you bring him to us just in time. It's meant to be."

Harry slowly swings his still shoe-clad feet to the floor, hands gripping the bed sheets. The weight on his back is suddenly gone with the absence of his bag, which, he suddenly remembers, is probably drowning itself back at that torture current, "Take me to him."

"You can't." Eleanor readies herself to leave, possibly expecting Harry to just go back in his own quarantine and let them take care of business, but no. Never. That's not his business anymore. Eleanor continues, "He's being prepped for surgery."

Harry closes his eyes and he warily stands up, "Surgery..."

"The doctors told me that..."Eleanor hesitates, "... the infection inside him has somehow mutated, changed. It's why he's immune. Once they remove it, they'll be able to reverse-engineer a vaccine." Eleanor gives him a pained look, "A vaccine, Harry."

And fuck, Harry knows it. He found out about it the first day they met and it supposed to be a fucking drop-off. Something he should've done and let go easily, but this is not he's expecting. This isn't what he wants. Niall's warned him about it; "It's going to blow up on your face." And yeah, it pretty much did. It blew and he didn't even notice he was unprepared.

"Find someone else." Harry demands quietly.

"There is no one else." Eleanor replies just as hard.

"Listen," Harry points a finger at her, "You're going to take me to him and-" Someone kicks him at the back of his knees, and he drops to the ground as a gun is clicked and aimed at his head.

"Stop." Eleanor practically pleads, but she doesn't show a single trace of weakness, "Stop fighting. All of us have something to get through, and don't you want it to finally end? This is our only hope, Harry."