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bytheangell · 3 years

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We Care A Lot

(Whumptober 2020 prompt: (Disorientation | Blurred Vision | Ringing Ears) (Read on AO3)

There was an explosion.

That’s pretty much the extent of the details available to her before she’s called onto the scene so she isn’t sure what to expect when she gets there. As much as she tries to prepare herself for the worst, what she’s greeted with still stops her dead in her tracks for a few seconds. There isn’t time to get all of the victims to the nearest hospitals and clinics, and some have injuries too severe to risk moving. Cat wishes she could portal them all to the places they can get the proper mundane treatment, but that isn’t how this works - not if she wants to live past today, at least. Not for the first time, Catarina reminds herself that the lives lost today to keep her secret are a price she has to pay for the many more she’ll be able to help in the centuries to come.

Somehow, that never really makes it any easier, or the guilt any less.

The best she can do is show up and sneak her magic in where she’s able to, hoping it’s enough. She tries to do as much good as possible, to save as many lives as she can who might not have otherwise made it. Then, when it’s all over, she’ll try to deal with the fact that the ones she can’t save would’ve died anyway.

It isn’t completely reassuring but it’s a necessary reminder, especially after nights like this.

The scene she arrives at is brutal. Catarina immediately goes to a less occupied corner to set up a makeshift workstation, one where she’ll mostly be left alone to use her magic more freely, not that she won’t fully glamor herself and her magic just the same. She spends the first half an hour doing the best she can with broken bones, limbs that need to be removed entirely, and people closest to the source of the blast with literal holes through them from flying shrapnel.

Catarina tends to those who come to her and seeks out those unable to, who need her assistance the most.

She saves a lot of people, helping to pull bodies from the rubble and pouring as much of her magic into them as possible to get them stable. There are so many. Too many. She can’t even focus on entirely healing any one person, not if she wants to have enough healing magic to go around. Instead, she aims to stabilize the worst of the patients, as many as she can.

Catarina doesn’t keep track of the lives she manages to save but she does keep track of another number: the ones she loses. Six. Six mundanes die with her magic pouring into them, working to knit back together torn arteries, attempting to restart hearts. It isn’t enough. For six souls she isn’t strong enough, or fast enough, or good enough.

And then the unthinkable happens - a second blast.

Cat’s out-of-the-way station happens to be along the side of the building, which explodes mere feet away from her and her current patient. The close proximity of the explosion brings an immediate ringing to her ears, eyes stinging and blurring with dust and smoke.

There’s screaming. So much screaming. It takes Catarina a few seconds too long to realize it’s coming from her, stopped only by a hand on her shoulder from one of the other nurses.

“Miss Loss! Are you hurt?” The nurse asks, and Cat muffles her cries to one last whimper as she looks down at herself to try and take stock. There’s so much blood on her hands and her clothing that she doesn’t know how much of it is her’s and how much is from those she pulled and worked on from the first blast.

“I…” she starts, then shakes her head. Her ears are still ringing and the world loses focus as she moves her head side-to-side. For just a second she can see the flash of blue skin between her long sleeves and the gloves she wears as her glamour drops from lack of concentration and energy. Shit. Cat closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and when she opens them again her glamour is back in place.

“I’m fine,” she lies, allowing herself to be helped up. She dusts herself off and, pushing through the pain and exhaustion she feels with every movement, and begins to work once more.

Cat feels the moment she pushes herself too far. She has to sit down next to the mundane she’s healing, no longer able to stand upright on her own accord. Instead of stopping - she really, really should stop using her magic then - she pushes herself just a little bit further. She taps deeper into her reserves, then deeper still. She has herself convinced she has a little more left in her right up until her vision starts to blur at the edges, tinting black.

Cat has just enough time to call Ragnor, praying he’ll answer. Her mind has just enough time to imagine a dozen scenarios where he doesn’t, where she dies here, alone.

Cat can hear something on the other end but it’s muffled from the ringing in her ears. A voice? Ragnor? Or just the distant sounds of the people around her?

“Explosion… too much… magic,” she manages. She wants to portal to him but she can barely speak, and she knows if she has any amount of magic left it isn’t enough to open a steady portal. The phone drops from her hand and she tries to keep her eyes open, forcing herself to remain conscious.

She forces her eyes back open after each blink. She can’t pass out. She cannot pass out. If she does… if she loses her glamour...

It takes five minutes for Ragnor to get to her.

“I didn’t know anywhere closer than 3 blocks away to portal to,” he says by way of an apology. He looks like he wants to say more, to say something else, but he hesitates. What he says, whether it’s what he originally planned on saying or not, is, “My dear, what have you done to yourself?”

She hears the concern in the question, but more importantly, she hears the unspoken affections neither dared to voice, not even now. She thinks it’s probably a good sign that she isn’t dying, if nothing else. She likes to think he’d say it then if she were.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

Ragnor lifts her like she’s nothing, opening a portal without hesitation or regard for their surroundings. He doesn’t look at the scene around them, eyes focused only on her, and steps through the portal with her in his arms. Even if he hadn’t been deciding their destination they would’ve ended up in the same place, because there’s only one place Cat wants to be just then.

They come out of the other side of the portal directly into the middle of Ragnor’s living room.

“Let’s get you to the bed,” he suggests.

“I think I’ll just sleep right here,” Cat mutters, going limp in his arms as she passes out.

---

There’s no daylight in the room when she wakes up, though she can see the outline of yellow along the edges of curtains keeping the brightness out, likely so she could rest better. There’s a cup of tea next to her on a warmer, and a class of cool water beside it.

Catarina sits up and sips at the tea first, thankful for any taste in her mouth that isn’t dust or blood, then switches it out for the glass of water which she promptly drains in one go.

The door creeks open slowly, familiar green features silhouetted by the light from the hallway.

“You’re awake,” Ragnor says, sounding relieved. “May I…?”

“Of course,” Cat says. “It’s your room.”

Ragnor only rolls his eyes in response to that, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. Achy. Cold.” Despite the layers of blankets on top of her, they both know the cold she feels is a sign of magic depletion, and not anything external. “But fine. And alive, thanks to you.”

“You know I’ll always come when you call, Cat,” Ragnor says, shaking his head slowly. “But I do wish it were under nicer circumstances. That kind heart of yours is going to get you into trouble one day, and I-”

Cat remains silent as Ragnor trails off, though her heartbeat picks up slightly at his words.

“I was so afraid when I saw you like that. I-”

So close. So close, and yet…

“I care about you, Catarina.”

There it is.

“I know,” she says, her tone kind and gentle.

“No, I mean… I mean I love you.” “I know,” she repeats. Because she does. She always has, she never doubted it, but it’s still nice to hear him say it out loud. “I love you too, Ragnor, though I’m sure you knew that as well.”

“I had hoped…” he starts, but breaks off, this time not with uncertainty but with a smile. “You should rest. We can talk about this later when you’re feeling better.”

Ragnor moves to stand up from the side of the bed but Cat impulsively reaches out a hand to grab him by the wrist and stop him.

“You could stay?” she offers. “I’d like it if you stayed,” she amends, shifting over so there’s space next to her.

Ragnor pauses, considering, then nods and slides himself under the covers next to her, immediately shifting to wrap himself comfortingly around her.

Catarina smiles - though he can’t see it with her facing away from him - at the fact that he knows without asking exactly what she needs just then. It’s such a relief to know this warmth, to feel the surety of Ragnor’s care and protection and love, that the sleep she falls back into comes easily.

#catarina loss #ragnor fell #catarina x ragnor #shadowhunters #tsc #listen I'm determined to post as close to 20k words this month so SORRY FOR ALL THE FICS AT THE LAST SECOND #but also i've had this one almost done for ages and it's nice to have the extra motivation to finish and post it!#long post #elle writes a few deadbeat lines

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