T HE WAITING ROOM smelled sharp and biting, like iodine and bleach, and it tickled the back of Sam's throat. Each time she coughed, the man and woman sharing the waiting room would look up and stare blankly at her for several moments before turning back to the phones in their hands.
Hands. Sam had scrubbed hers raw, and still she hadn't been able to get the blood out from under her nails. It stained her cuticles and there was a splotch on her wrist she'd missed, and she couldn't help but feel like—like someone was taunting her.
There's blood on your hands, Samantha Cooper, and don't you forget it.
The double doors that led to the operating rooms of the hospital's trauma unit swung open and Sam caught a glimpse of a doctor dressed in pale green scrubs. She was on her feet in a flash, making a beeline for him.
"Hi. Are you the doctor who operated on the woman who was brought in? Daphne?"
The nurses at the triage desk hadn't been able to tell her much, only that the woman who'd arrived by ambulance had been taken to the OR.
The doctor nodded. "Yeah, I'm Dr. Linz. Are you family?"
"Mm-hmm." Sam really hoped the EMTs weren't still around to call her bluff.
"Okay, well, she's up in recovery. Surgery went well.
Daphne sustained a pneumothorax and a ruptured spleen that required a splenectomy.
But she's breathing on her own. She might not be awake for a bit, and she'll definitely be groggy from the anesthesia and pain medicine for a while, but you can head on up to see her.
Visiting hours are until six. And I know the nurses are going to need some information from you if you can provide it. "
A shuddering breath escaped her, and her vision blurred unexpectedly. Sam pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and nodded jerkily. "Okay. Thank you so much. Um." She swallowed hard and tried to wrangle her racing thoughts. "Information, you said? I need to give the nurses?"
Dr. Linz hummed. "Basic medical history, insurance info if you have it handy. All we were given when she was brought in was her first name."
Sam didn't have any of that. Daphne didn't have any of that.
But that was fine. She'd— they would cross that bridge later. What mattered was that she was okay. She was alive and in recovery and—she was alive .
"You said she's in a recovery room? Could you tell me where to go?"
Dr. Linz pointed her toward the elevator. "One floor up, make a left. She's in room 201B."
Sam hesitated. "Are there stairs I could take instead?"
Room 201B was the first one on the left, just past the nurses' station. Sam slipped inside the room and drew up short inside the doorway, air leaving her lungs in a rush that left her dizzy.
Daphne looked so small in the hospital bed. So small and pale and—and human .
The nurses had cleaned her up, washing the blood and grime from her arms and face, and if it weren't for the constant beeping of the monitors she was hooked up to, Sam could almost convince herself that Daphne was just sleeping and not still knocked out from the anesthesia.
Sam shut the door softly and took a seat beside the bed.
Daphne's hand, the one that didn't have a needle catheter jammed in it, rested atop the pink hospital blanket.
Careful not to disturb the pulse oximeter on her finger, Sam took Daphne's hand in hers and swept her thumb across the back of Daphne's knuckles.
"I don't think you can hear me right now," Sam whispered, "but you have no idea how happy I am that you're okay.
I was so, so scared that you—" Her voice broke and it felt like her chest cracked clean in half, everything she'd been bottling up since stepping foot inside the hospital pouring out of her in a deluge of ragged breaths and hot, salty tears that stung the corners of her chapped lips.
"'am?"
Sam jerked her head up and watched as Daphne's lashes fluttered against her cheeks, eyes moving beneath her lids. Her eyes cracked open slowly, fuzzy but focused on Sam.
"Hey," she whispered, squeezing Daphne's fingers.
Daphne opened her mouth, but instead of words, a rasping cough came out.
Sam scrambled to grab the cup of water off the bedside table. She bent the straw and brought it to Daphne's parched-looking lips. "Here. Small sips."
She was pretty sure Daphne was allowed water; otherwise, the nurses wouldn't have left it beside the bed.
Finished drinking, Daphne slumped back against her pillows and pinned Sam with a glare. "I hope you know I think you're a reckless idiot for doing what you did."
Sam laughed through the tears clouding her eyes. "Yeah, well—"
A soft knock sounded on the door and a nurse wearing dark blue scrubs poked her head into the room with a surprised smile. "You're awake. That's great." She turned to Sam. "Do you mind stepping out for just a minute? I'll call you back in a jiffy."
Reluctantly, she let go of Daphne's hand and slipped out into the hall. Two minutes passed and the nurse stepped out to tell Sam she could head back in.
Daphne smiled dopily at her. "I am so mad at you."
She sounded drunk. She sounded— "Someone got the good drugs."
"Mm-hmm." Daphne giggled and sighed and wiggled her fingers until Sam got the memo and held her hand. "Still mad, though."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"Okay."
"Sam."
"If you're waiting for me to say that I'm sorry, I hate to break it to you, but you're going to be waiting a long, long time because I'm not sorry and I'm not in the business of saying things I don't mean."
Daphne's nose scrunched. "Sam." She paused for a moment and from the furrow of her brow it looked like she was trying to swim out of a fog. "There is no way you could've known that would work."
"No," she admitted. "It wasn't my plan, you know. I didn't go the crossroads looking for a demon so I could make my wish. I just wanted to talk to you. You left me without talking through anything, and I—"
"I was trying to get out of it," Daphne whispered.
"That's why I left. I knew it was a long shot, and I didn't want to get your hopes up; I thought a clean break would be better if it didn't work, but I thought if I could appeal to reason, maybe Lucifer"—her lips drew into a sneer as she said his name—"would have no choice but to let me go. Cosmic contracts, remember? If my contract was truly fulfilled, it should have worked, but I suppose because I sold my soul to him with my first deal, it didn't count toward my second. "
"I guess we both decided to go for broke, huh?" Sam joked.
Daphne didn't laugh. "What were you thinking? Your soul was on the table, Sam. You could've lost it, and for what? A few years with me?" She shook her head. "I am not worth that. No one is."
"Yeah, well, I couldn't stomach the thought of you spending the rest of my life getting picked apart by harpies. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself." She rubbed her hand across the top of her chest. "What good is a soul if you're not going to do the right thing with it?"
Daphne pursed her lips. "I still think you're a reckless idiot."
"As long as you're alive, I can live with that." Sam exhaled shakily and slipped her thumb under the loose hospital bracelet on Daphne's wrist, stroking over her skin. "Did you have any idea that when you got your soul back you'd—"
"No." Daphne leaned her head back against the pillows. "No clue."
She felt a little less guilty that it hadn't crossed her mind knowing that it hadn't crossed Daphne's, either.
"What about the, uh, hold harmless clause? Did you know about that?"
Daphne frowned. "I knew of it, but like I said, no one I've bargained with has ever made a purely selfless wish before.
Even the ones that seem benevolent on the surface, like saving a loved one, contain some kernel of personal gain.
You'd wish to save a loved one, at least in part because you don't want to lose them, and that's not purely benevolent.
I won't lie and say it didn't cross my mind to encourage you to wish for something like world peace, but I didn't want to risk it not working, and you'd have wanted to know why, and …
I think it only worked for us because neither of us knew it would. "
"For whatever reason it worked, I'm just glad it—"
Another knock sounded against the door.
"You can come in," Daphne called out when no one immediately stepped into the room.
"Eithrig." Of all the faces Sam might've expected to see, hers was not one of them. "Hi."
"It's Effie." She stepped into the room and shut the door. "If you don't mind."
"What are you doing here?" Daphne demanded, glowering from the hospital bed. The monitor beside the bed beeped noisily and they all watched as her heart rate spiked.
"I mean no harm." Effie held up her hands. In one she held a pale pink folder. "I just wanted to bring you this."
Daphne frowned. "What is it?"
"Here." Effie approached the bed slowly and handed the folder to Daphne. "I didn't know if you had a plan in place, but I thought this might come in handy in case you didn't."
"What is it?" Sam leaned over, careful not to bump Daphne's middle.
"It's … it's papers," Daphne said. "For me."
"Everything's there that you could possibly need. Birth certificate, social security number, school transcripts." Effie's lips quirked. "Even health insurance. I figure the last thing you wanted to immediately contend with was a shit ton of medical debt."
"This is—" Daphne jerked her head up, eyes wide. " Cooper? "
Hesitantly, Sam took the paper from Daphne's hand and read it herself.
It was a photocopy of a passport. D APHNE C OOPER , the name on it read. Sam was glad she wasn't hooked up to any heart rate monitors, because what her heart did couldn't have been healthy, stopping in its tracks before tripping all over itself in some desperate attempt to beat out of her chest.
Effie shrugged. "I didn't know if you had a last name, but she was willing to sacrifice her soul for you; I figured it doesn't get more romantic than that. I guess I assumed you'd be headed to last name sharing eventually."
Daphne traced the letters of her name, a small smile playing at the edges of her lips. "He's going to punish you for this. Helping me."
"He will." Effie sighed, sounding resigned to her fate. "But it will have been worth it to have had the pleasure of seeing the look on his face when he realized he'd lost his best and his brightest. That he'd been bested by a little human, no less." She shot Sam an apologetic look. "No offense."
Sam shrugged. "None taken."
"I should get out of here," Effie said, backing slowly toward the door. "He's going to be less than pleased when he learns you didn't kick the bucket."
"Assuming he doesn't already know," Daphne said, eyelids looking heavy. "Thank you. For this." She shut the folder and handed it to Sam. "For whatever it's worth, I won't forget it."
"Have a nice life, Daphne Cooper," Effie said, tipping her chin. "You, too, Sam." She smirked softly. "Even if you were a pain in my ass there for a minute."
Effie slipped out of the hospital room and Daphne slunk down deeper beneath her blanket with a tired sigh.
"Get some sleep, Daphne Cooper," Sam said, grinning as she tucked the covers around her gently, careful not to disturb any of her bandages. "I'll be here when you wake up."
" Cooper. " Daphne hummed, eyes already shut. "After all we've been through, you didn't even propose. At least not to me. I feel cheated."
"Just you wait." Sam pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'll give you the best proposal of your damned life."
"Don't threaten me with a good time."