Who: Elliot Alderton and Elsie Branstone
What: In the hospital after Eliza gets attacked :[
When: A few days ago



Elliot found that he hadn't been breathing normally since he'd arrived at St. Mungo's. His erratic breaths were driving him mad, and the bleached white walls of the hospital weren't helping his case. He absolutely hated the hospital, he hated the smell and the constant coming and going of healers and nurses and patients. Patients that were oozing blood or had some other random, ridiculous, terrible thing wrong with them. Nothing good came out of being in a hospital, and now he was here because his little sister hadn't woken up from her attack.

Death eaters! Death eaters attacked Eliza! Where in the world had they gotten the idea that she was a threat, or worthy of their attention? She was just a kid, she was a quiet kid who stayed out of trouble and wanted to help people and---even though it was completely unreasonable and stupid, Elliot could not stop his thoughts from rushing to slamming the blame on her idiot boyfriend. Elliot always knew there was something strange with that Diggle boy, and now! Now Eliza had nearly been killed.

Liam was with his grandparents, Millie's parents. They were always happy to take him, but they lived nearly on the other side of Ireland so it was never a good time to visit with the boy. Elliot had been sitting in the waiting room with his father, but Arkie Alderton's attention span could not be lengthened, even when his daughter was lying in a hospital bed. The man had paced and moaned about the room, but then had frantically remembered he'd left some muggle electronic on in his house and that he'd be right back. Elliot was sure that it was going on an hour that his father had left, and Elliot was ready to ream into him the second he got back.

He groaned, slumping further into his seat with his hands plastered to his face. He couldn't be more miserable.

Elsie really hated hospitals. St. Mungo's, in particular, brought back unpleasant memories of her father, the majority of which she hadn't dealt with. Thus, she avoided them like the plague. If she felt sick, she dosed on medicinal home remedy potions and called it fine, much to the chagrin of her mother and brother.

But when she'd seen that thing from Elliot, about his sister, no less, Elsie was at St. Mungo's before she'd even had time to process what was going on. But she certainly didn't go alone; instead, she was armed with the unnamed stuffed cat he'd sent her just a few days ago as her protector, guardian, sublet of strength, etc. As she made her way to the fourth floor, all Elsie could think about was how this poor family had been put through the ringer for the past week (although she was quite sure that extended past the week, but that was for another time--). Elliot and that horrible ice storm--hail--at work, now having to deal with Eliza being in the hospital due to Death Eaters... it was enough to make Elsie feel like crying, and none of it had happened to her!

Approaching the waiting room she'd been directed to after hesitantly inquiring about "Alderton," she saw the top of a familiar head buried hands, the shoulders slumped.

"Elliot?" she asked as she drew closer, more of a means of wondering if he was okay, than trying to make sure it was him. "Is she--are you--?" The grip on the cat tightened, as she sighed inwardly and tried to spit out words properly. "Is there anything I can get you?"

Elliot flinched greatly at his name and his hands shot down to his side. Oh, what a relief it was to see Elsie, Elliot didn't think he could ever loosen the tension in his body, but he felt some of it, a lot of it dissipate at the sight of his girlfriend. Still a very odd concept, but Elliot was glad that he had her right now, he was sure he would not be able to get through this by himself. Archie and Ioan would try, but Elliot was too used to them to take anything seriously, and his father was anything but useful, so there was no---

Eliza, Eliza was the one that usually broke him out of his dramatic spells or his depressed stupors; his sister was the only one who got it all, but she was the one that needed help right now.

"She's--" Elliot was surprised to find how quickly he choked up as he tried to speak, not expecting tears to strike his eyes. He faltered for a moment, trying to recollect himself, and he took a deep, shuddering breath, "She's on---ten potions or something, she hasn't woken up yet and---they say she'll be fine but they have--no idea what spell they used and---" Elliot shook his head, hands dropping down between his legs as he slumped his shoulders, "It's so---I know nothing else."

She sat down next to him and tried not to look too anxiously over his self. He looked awful. Not in the sense that he looked bad, just that he was about ready to break. And who could blame him? If it was her brother in there, Elsie knew she'd feel just the same way. Seeing Elliot now, though, somehow calmed her. It didn't make sense, because even when she was stepping forward to talk to him, she was panicking, flustered, perhaps even on the verge of tears herself. But now, it felt like Elliot needed someone calm, and so she could be that person for him. The last thing she would want in this sort of situation was someone thoroughly uninvolved acting as though their world was ending, too.

Placing a hand gently on his tightly-wound shoulder, Elsie leaned a little closer towards him. "I suppose if they're confident, that's a good sign."

Gift, why hadn't she gotten a gift? Flowers, a bear, chocolate--anything. She'd just thought of Elliot and left. With another inward sigh, she reminded herself sternly that she was being calm. Fretting over the niceties of visiting the sick in hospitals did not constitute being calm.

"Are they allowing her visitors?"

"Not yet," Elliot snapped angrily, directing a glare toward the receptionist of the waiting room. He didn't know what the healers were still doing after all this time, if it wasn't as if---all it made Elliot think was that Eliza was worse off than they had initially told him, and that just made him worry even more and---they better allow him to see her soon or he was going to simply blow his lid right here, in the middle of the hospital. Then they'd have an issue and---augh.

Elliot lifted his head to look at Elsie, letting out a defeated sigh. He hated to see her look so concerned, because of him, but at the same time he was glad that there was someone to be worried about him. Was that selfish? Yes, he was sure it was, but he didn't have time to worry or care about that at the moment. There was no way he'd be able to keep his emotions in check right now, on his own.

"I can't even---" why he was trying to talk about it, or attempt to figure out what had happened was beyond him, and was ready and willing to once again blame his emotional state. Though--it was one question he was sure was not going to go away, or be answered, any time soon. "Death eaters! What would they want with her? She's a silly kid! What could a bloody--what could they want?"

What, indeed. Elsie had been at Flourish and Blotts the times it had been attacked--nothing more than bad scares, for the most part, thankfully--and it was a question she asked herself every time they made the news. They terrified her. The fact that it was people doing all of these terrible, unspeakable things shook a goodhearted, naive girl like Elsie to the very roots. She wanted to believe that there was a little bit of good in everybody, that there was hope for everyone. But even she couldn't summon one tiny bit of those feelings for the men behind the masks.

"I don't know," she replied, softly. Seeing Elliot this distraught was another thing that shook her. She really hadn't known him that long, Elsie supposed, but this was one emotion she'd never seen him act on. And she didn't know what to do about it. There was nothing she could think of to say that was comforting, nothing that would be useful, nothing to make him feel better.

So she slipped a hand loosely around one of his, trying to make it easy enough to slip out if he didn't want to be touched right now. With a slightly sad half-smile, she looked at him. "But it'll get figured out. Things'll be okay. And I'm sure they'll let you go in soon to see her."

Even though he had been feeling so grateful about Elsie's presence, Elliot was stunned at the feeling of her hand in his, and even more surprised at how quickly his fingers gripped onto hers. She was his girlfriend, yes, but with the way they went about this they behaved like fourth years, scared to make a move or touch or---Elliot hadn't had a real girlfriend in years. Millie hadn't been a girlfriend, she had been a cute girl at work that he hooked up with a few times, and ended up getting pregnant. She was his wife because both sets of parents would have had conniptions and croaked otherwise. He and Millie hadn't had a relationship, they simply dealt with each other and smiled for the cameras, barely.

So this was new, this was very new for Elliot, and he wished they were situated in a better circumstance so they could try to figure it all out. The waiting room of St. Mungo's while his sister was lying near death was definitely not the most romantic of settings, but Elliot felt his heart pump a bit faster anyway.

"I'm glad you're here," he said softly, tightening his hold on Elsie's hand. He really was, he was really glad that she'd wanted to come, and he was really glad that she seemed like she was staying.

This was not the climate to be building romances, Elsie thought, with no small amount of sadness. Even the small things, the silly-sounding events were terrible. But if they gave all that up, wouldn't that be considered giving in to the other side, and letting them win? All these thoughts much bigger than her were swimming in her head as she leaned over to kiss his cheek, pulling away slowly and keeping her eyes glued to the tiles.

"I'm glad you wanted me." Here, she cringed slightly as she added the critical word in her head, but it wasn't what she meant. Despite the fact that they were here because of his sister, and the truthfully had no idea how (or really, even if, despite assurances from the Healers) she would pull through this, Elsie allowed herself one selfish moment. And that was expressing thanks to the man sitting next to her.

She tried to think of more reassuring things to say, but nothing that wasn't obnoxiously upbeat or a blatant lie came to her. Instead, she merely held his hand tighter, and gave him another small smile.