REWRITTEN.
There was a little girl with dark hair watching her. Oil black lashes over coffee brown eyes and sweet dimples.
Her dress made of flowers, her yellow bike the only light anywhere.
Violet was not in pain.
The relief was familiar, but the longing was dangerous.
The girl watched her with sad eyes as she wrapped her arms around herself and looked around.
It was still autumn. Copper leaves beneath her feet, crunching under her shoes. Falling gently around them.
Like last time, she thought numbly to herself.
But otherwise, time was still.
"Again?"
The girl finally spoke.
Violet opened her mouth to say something but the words died, like always, in her throat.
Ashamed almost, she frowned and looked down.
"You're lucky I like you." The girl mused, beginning to pedal slowly. She wound around Violet in a circle, watching her as she shifted uneasily under her powerful gaze. "You don't beg and cry and ask questions like everyone else."
Violet felt the warmth drain from her slowly and shivered, holding herself tighter.
The bell dinged on the handlebars.
"The quiet is nice."
The first thing Violet was concious of was the familiar cold chilling her body to the core.
Then, weighed down by her own limbs, trying to tear her eyelids open, she inhaled a shaky breath that rushed into her lungs and coughed, grimacing at the crackling sound within her chest.
The spot where the bullet pierced her heart burned like someone was holding a fire poker to it, pressing down so her breaths grated against her lungs, crackling through her throat.
Her head swam.
Violet tried to swallow the dryness in her mouth but froze from the sharp pain that reminded her of her injuries. She was alone in the dark medical room. No light. No machines. Everything was switched off.
A thin white sheet had been laid over her body. Spots of it blossomed old blood.
She was left in silence, listening to her own harsh, laboured breathing, staring up at the pitch black ceiling trying to gather her thoughts.
But she was breathing.
Klaus... Diego... Five. Tears filled her eyes.
Her throat burned and she barely managed to lean over the edge of the bed she was on before vomiting up whatever was in her stomach, retching and coughing.
It felt as though the bed she was on was on a rocking boat.
Sobs tore through her body at the reopening cuts in her throat, her mouth.
A tiny clink of something made her look down, trying to focus through the dark.
A pieces of bloody, slimy glass. Sharp edges. No bigger than a fingernail.
The floor was stained crimson and the metallic taste in her mouth gave her horrible memories of that motel room - She felt her skin stitch itself together horrifically slowly, the pain numbing, her skin tingling, and she rested her forehead on her arm on the edge of the bed, eyes closing. It took all she had to focus.
The pressure in her chest was slowly becoming bearable. She put a hand to her throat and grimaced, trying to breathe slowly through the soreness. A thought occurred to her that this must have been what swallowing razor blades was like - the glass shards were near sharp enough and definitely did enough damage.
Minutes passed, or hours, she was unsure.
Violet swung her legs over and as soon as she put weight on them, crumpled to the floor. Ears ringing. Taking shaky breaths, she pushed herself to a stand and stumbled towards the door, every bone in her body aching from the effort.
Reaching that doorway took all the energy out of her. It felt as though she'd run a marathon, head pounding, legs shaking beneath her.
She leant against the doorway to catch her breath, putting a hand over her chest. Her fingers felt through the tear in her top, running over scarred skin.
Violet's thoughts drifted to Five. She didn't even know what day it was. Were they almost at the date? Where was everyone?
She stumbled out of the medical room, using the wall as support and slowly dragged herself to the sound of voices deeper in the house. Anyone looking would have thought her an actual ghost.
She was so focussed on staying awake she didnt actually hear rushed footsteps coming her way until it was too late and a body rounded the corner only to collide with hers, sending her crashing to the floor.
Her bones ached at the impact, coughs rattling her chest as she groaned and tried to breathe through the agony, curling in on her side.
"Violet?"
Allison's voice was a shocked whisper.
The pain in her ribs was unbearable as she tried to inhale, clutching her chest, eyebrows knitted together in pain.
Someone shouted something and she grimaced, blinking her eyes up at her surroundings.
Rushed footsteps hurried to the corridor.
"Oh my God," Allison appeared as though she'd seen a ghost. "You're alive."
Violet weakly managed to crawl herself to her knees and then dragged herself to a stand, having to lean her entire side against the wall else she would surely collapse. Her legs felt weak. Everything did.
She tried to blink Allison into clarity but her vision continued to shift in and out of focus.
Her hand lifted to cover her mouth. She scanned the girl up and down in disbelief.
"We- we thought you were..."
Everything that followed hurt Violets head.
Violet covered her face with her hand.
The footsteps that followed ground to a halt beside Allison.
Klaus took one look at Violet and hesitated, not expecting the sight.
He warily eyed her then Allison, who was stuck staring at her in shock.
"Wait, this isn't..." he trailed off uneasily. He pointed at her. "Can you see her too?"
Tears welled in allisons eyes.
Klauses eyebrows Rose. "Tell me you can see her."
She nodded shakily.
He covered his mouth with his hands. "Oh, thank God!"
The man made a move towards the fragile girl as though to embrace her and she nearly tripped over her own feet backing away, eyes wide with fear. Her head lowered when he stopped himself and clenched his fists at his sides.
A shout from Diego came from another room not too far away, unaware.
"Allison, where's Pogo?"
A look of realisation crossed the stunned womans features as she glanced at a wide eyed Klaus.
Violet eyed them, confused and tired.
"He's still not waking up-"
Who?
Two wary looks were cast her way as she glanced between the two, trying to gather what it was she had missed, and then a scary thought of realisation struck her.
She forced one leg in front of the other and gripped the wall rigidly, half leaning against it as she slipped by the two.
"Hey, hey! Volet, slow down, okay?"
Klaus jumped in front of her path with his tattood hands out towards her just as Allison swore and ran back in the direction of Diego's voice.
But flinched back from his hand, shoulder knocking into a picture frame. It swung, falling from it's hook and shattered at her feet, making her flinch even worse and cover her ears.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
She pushed off the wall and dodged Klaus, darting around him and falling onto one knee. She forced herself up with the help of a small table and made a weak, unsteady beeline for the living room.
As she rounded the corner Diego stood with bloody hands over a figure on the couch. His back was to her, shielding them from view. Allison was trying to talk to him about something urgently, grasping his arm, but all eyes turned to her as she stepped foot in the room.
Diego blanched as he caught sight of her.
"Vi-," he said shakily. "Violet?"
But her gaze was on the glimpse of familiar blue uniform lying still behind him.
Diego backed away a shaky step, an unreadable expression crossing his face.
The girl had her gaze fixed on the bloodstain blossoming from the figures abdomen, now in view. Five lay there unconcious, one hand lying flat against his stomach, the other arm hanging limp over the edge of the couch, fingertips grazing the floor. His skin was pale from where she stood and her heart raced, finally picking up from the slow, weak pulsing it had been previously.
"Violet-"
She ignored all protests and collapsed to her knees just before she reached his side, vision cutting out for a worrying moment. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the couch cushion, shakily reaching up to clasp Five's hand.
"Violet, you can't- you can't- heal him in- in the state you're in." Diego warned from somewhere off to the side.
She clutched his cold hand in her own, barely having the energy to lift her head and focussed.
For a few long minutes everything was silent as they watched some twinges of colour return to Five's pallid face. But as soon as his blood began to replenish, Violet had to tear her hand away.
She suddenly hunched over to the side as her body was wracked with guttural coughs that shook her whole body, her throat burning.
Eyes wide, they could do nothing but watch as she retched into the crook of her elbow. Soon their looks turned to horror as she began to cough up blood.
Crimson splattered across the darkwood floors below her as tears rolled freely down her cheeks, her breaths rattling her rib cage as she brought a trembling hand up to her throat. Her eyes screwed shut.
"Violet, please-"
Her hand went back to Five's as she coughed up blood onto the floor to the side of the couch, a nightmarish pain shooting up her throat. Even while putting herself through more anguish while trying to heal him, she was only weakening herself.
"We can find Pogo to help, you dont have to-"
A hand was placed on her shoulder and yanked her back.
"You're going to kill yourself!" Diego shouted down at her.
She immediately clawed at his wrist and kicked him away.
"No I wont!" She shouted back hoarsely, shocking them all into silence.
They could do nothing but watch sadly as she began to cough again, expression faltering.
"Violet, please..."
Her fingers clawed inside her mouth, head lowered, until she felt something and dropped it onto the bloody floorboards. It made a noise as it tapped onto the floor.
"Is that glass?" Allison exclaimed.
Their voices became a blur of muffled noise that she couldn't seem to get away from.
Blood trailed down her lips and chin as she choked up more tiny chips of glass, picking them out and tossing them on the blood slick floor, stomach rolling.
Finally with some sense of relief, Violet leant back on her hands, shuddering as her body was finally allowed to heal. But instead of listening to the others, she crawled back to Five's side and slumped with her back against the couch front and reached up blindly to clasp his hand dangling over the side. She clutched it to her shoulder and shut her eyes, drawing her knees in with a shaky exhale.
Exhaustion swept over her, weighing her limbs down like lead and ni longer could she listen to the others trying to convince her to stop.
And they knew that if anyone even attempted to prise her away from that boys side that they would only make things a thousand times worse.
Diego had to leave with Allison, leaving Klaus to keen an eye on the two.
He watched from the other couch, his own knees drawn up as he muttered absently, seemingly to no one on occasion.
It was a blur for Violet as she attempted to heal Five and simultaneously keep herself from passing out.
Klaus was clearly struggling to watch her. Sometimes it looked like she was barely breathing again, and he knew that if she actually did wind up dead, he would not be able to tell meaning the others had chosen the wrong person for Vi-watch.
Constantly he fidgeted, trying to ease his rolling stomach at the sight of her absolutely coated in blood and fading scars - especially since he had seen the wounds as they had occurred.
At some point it must have been too much, as when Violet prised her eyes open to peek at the silence in the room, his space on the opposite couch was gone.
Empty, she remained by Five Hargreeves side and quickly passed out - but not once did their hands depart from eachothers.