Chapter Text
Chrysanthemum
Chapter Nine :: Orchid
(Orchids say "I will always love you". When giving an orchid plant as a gesture of sympathy, it is important to give consideration to color. Pink and white are traditional colors of sympathy.)
("Mum! Look out!"
A scream tore through the air.)
Wally was across the room in seconds the moment the phone rang, buffeting his uncle, cousin, and children with a sudden gust of air, and he lifted his cell and flipped it open.
"This is Wally." He said quickly, the hand not gripping his phone vibrating anxiously as the person on the other end hesitated.
:"Wally?": It was Teddy, his voice was quiet and shaky, and Wally's hand twitched faster than a person could blink.
"Hey Ted, you got news?"
:"It's over.": Teddy breathed, :"Riddle and most of her followers are dead.": His grown ward hesitated, taking a deep, shaky breath. :"We lost a lot of good people too... Ron was one of them.":
"Shit."
Teddy chuckled grimly, :"Yeah. He was the only one taken out by wizards though... there was a number of Aurors torn apart by Inferi.":
Inferi - magical zombies... to borrow one of Azalea's favourite sayings: bloody fucking hell.
:"Luckily the ones that got away from Hermione's Fiendfyre dropped when we took out Riddle. It was her magic keeping them going.":
"Teddy..." Wally said slowly, "What are you trying to avoid telling me?"
Teddy was quiet for a moment, :"I had to leave to tell you.":
"Tell me what, Ted?"
:"Mum's in the hospital.":
(She staggered back, eyes widened in shock when her eyes flickered to where she had been hit.
Shit.
No time to hesitate.
Her arm reared back, cuff glowing eerily, before she swiped it downwards.
Blood splattered across the ground.
"MUM!"
Teddy howled.)
Azalea was still, surrounded by clean white sheets pulled up to her chin that made her sickly pale skin look absolutely ghostly, save for the unhealthy flush to her cheeks that spoke of a severe fever.
"They've done everything they could." Teddy said distantly, and Wally brushed shaking fingers through his wife's shortened hair. "It was a Dark curse, and those never heal."
"This kind of reminds me of the Zoom attack when you were a kid." The speedster let put a painful chuckle, "And when she woke up, she was more worried for me than she was herself."
"Sounds like Mum." The younger man agreed with a choked huff of laughter. "She forgets she's not invincible."
"At least that terrible scar is gone, though." He knew he was digging for the positives in the situation, but he couldn't help himself. He had grown so used to Azalea all-but swearing off fighting during their entire relationship, perfectly content to just run her bakery and raise the kids the way she had always wanted to be raised, where she didn't need to fight for everything.
She was happy that way.
And yet, she had been dragged right back into a fight by the personification of Death.
She hadn't needed to, but Wally knew his wife was nothing if not a hero in her own right, if she saw someone in danger, she would save them. She hadn't been able to completely shake the conditioning that others would always be more important than she was.
What a pair their made.
Just regular old human messes.
"Never liked that scar anyways." Wally finished, carefully smoothing his fingers across Azalea's flushed cheeks, his voice wavering.
Quiet fell over the two men.
"I killed her, you know." Teddy said suddenly, voice haunted. "Riddle. When I saw Mum go down, and all the blood, I snapped... I threw her out a window and watched her fall to her death." He snorted grimly, "What a mess."
Wally's lips twitched, and he couldn't help himself. "Literally?"
"Literally."
(Glass shattered, and a woman screamed as she fell, voice cutting off abruptly with a wet crunch.
Her vision was fading.
"Mum! Mum, stay with me!")
Azalea's eyes fluttered open, vision blurry as she took in the ceiling above her before sweeping around the room, Teddy's panicked begging echoing in her ears.
Her arm throbbed, and, wincing, she pushed herself up into a sitting position.
Only to topple back over when one arm didn't respond, and she cried out in pain when she landed awkwardly on her shoulder.
"Fuck. Damn it." The dark haired witch hissed under her breath, rolling over onto her other side so she could clap a hand against her pulsing injury as she half curled into a ball.
She froze, fingers slowly tracing down from her shoulder and down to her upper arm, twitching when they bumped over bandaging, and then stopped as her memories flooded back to her.
Getting hit with some kind of curse and watching in horror as her fingers began to wither, then beginning to panic as the curse began to spread rapidly up her wrist and lower arm. Making the snapshot decision to stop the curse before it moved any furthur up her body, even if she had no idea of the counter curse.
She remembered severing her arm just above her elbow.
Stunned, Azalea slowly traced her hand over the slope of where her arm now ended.
The door swung open, and, alarmed, Azalea looked up, catching the sight of a flustered Wally standing in the doorway the moment before he sped to her side faster than she could follow.
"Azalea." He breathed in relief, hands patting down her body in a blink, before moving to cradle her face, and then jerking down to crush their lips together in a desperate kiss that took away what little oxygen the injured witch had in her lungs. "Thank god."
"The kids?" Azalea muttered as Wally pressed their foreheads together, letting his hands slip down to press gently again her pulse.
The redhead chuckled, "Worried about you, but fine. They've been visiting."
Visiting?
"How long...?"
"Almost two months." Wally muttered.
Azalea let out a shaky sigh, "My arm... I had to cut it off. It was cursed - would've killed me-"
"I know." The speedster interrupted, fingers twitching against her pulse. "I love you."
"I love you too." Azalea blinked, lashes fluttering against Wally's freckled cheeks as he pulled her even closer to himself.
"I will always love you." He pledged, "One arm or two, you are mine, and I am yours."
The woman let out a breathy laugh, eyes sparkling in amusement. "You're just one big piece of cheese."
(And life went on. It was harder with the loss of her arm, yes, but life continued and Azalea coped.
In the words of the great Monty Python; tis only a flesh wound.
She was nothing if not stubborn, and she refused to let a missing arm slow her down.)
FIN