5. Desmond

"You two need to get to the Infirmary ASAP. Diana is in critical condition, and she isn't conscious." Judas shouted upon entering our barracks. His volume was enough to make my already overwhelming hangover worse.

"What the fuck?!" Bash raged as he stood and took my hand. He faded us there in an instant and charged through the double doors like he was on a rampage. "Did Az listen to me when I told him to bring her back–"

Sighing, I faded us out of the Infirmary back to our living room. I didn't have time for his anger issues, and I wouldn't let them ruin our chances at making things right with Diana. The shield I erected to keep Bash boxed in was fortified by my shadows. He was trapped for the time being.

"Listen to me, or else we aren't going anywhere," I said to him as if he was a child. I felt my horns sprout from my hairline, and tried to rein in my anger so I didn't shift. "You're going to calm the fuck down, and stop talking to Azazel like you're a toxic, abusive piece of shit. When you see him there, you'll thank him for bringing our woman home. When you see her, you'll act remorseful and apologize. We all will."

Bash stared at me, and I realized I was using my new voice. The sound was dark, eerie. Almost other-worldly. It was a gift I had received along with my shadows when I came back from the other side. I never used it in front of people because of how unsettling it could be. I coughed, changing back to the voice I always had.

"Do I make myself clear, Sebastian?"

He nodded without a word, and I faded us back to where we left. We calmly walked to her ward and Michael opened the door to let us into her room. It wasn't a typical hospital room, resembling a spacious hotel suite instead. Oisín sat by her bedside, holding her hand with tears in his eyes. I had never seen him this upset. It didn't bode well for her condition.

What happened?I linked Ares. He didn't look much better than Oisín.

Her magic went haywire, and she destroyed the club. Everything happened so fast. The healers have some treatments they're working on.He rubbed the back of his neck, and that's when I realized he was wearing all leather. From his vest to his pants. I discreetly used my magic to change his outfit to gray sweatpants, a black tee shirt and sneakers.

Thank you.Even through the mindlink, I could hear him sniffling, trying to hold his tears back.

I spent the past few months drinking myself into a stupor so I didn't have to feel the crushing weight of my own fuckups. Or my guilt. The rare times I was sober, it felt as if stones weighed down on me as they piled higher and higher until I was buried beneath them. But that meant I wasn't there for Ares, or any of the guys.

I gave him a hug and had I been a smaller man, he would have crushed me. His tears soaked my sweatshirt, and my heart broke for him. My magic allowed me to feel every ounce of his fear, sorrow, and guilt as it swirled inside him. Despite not having his permission, I used my emotional manipulation to pump some neutrality through him, so he didn't break down by her bedside.

She wasn't responding to us at the apartment we had to escape to. What if she never wakes up?I had the same concern as Ares but didn't want to say anything.

The door opened again, and a nurse wheeled Mal in. He looked awful, and his wounds weren't healing. His leg was bandaged and propped up. He barely waited for his wheelchair to stop before he was lifting himself up and hobbling toward her bed. He sat on the side and ran his fingers through her hair.

Ares let me go and sat next to him, wrapping him up in a hug that made Mal wince. They didn't say anything to each other, but I could tell there wasn't too much bad blood between them.

Come here.Lucifer's voice rang through my head and I cringed. I hated that he could get inside my mind, but couldn't do much about it. He and Bash left the room, and I followed them out. We met Michael and a pale vampire with long blond hair in the hallway, and based on her white coat I assumed she was Diana's doctor.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Kira Greene," she introduced herself. "I'll be treating Diana during her stay."

"What's the prognosis, and what can we expect as treatment?" Lucifer asked in an annoyed tone, not bothering to introduce himself. I guess the Prince of Darkness didn't see the need to when everyone knew who he was.

"We believe that her magic is atypical from being outside of her time period for too long. It basically ate away at her, and became uncontrollable due to destabilization. From what Michael said, she's been under a lot of stress, too. This can cause an individual to experience magical outbursts, and because Diana is so powerful, her outbursts can be deadly."

"You didn't mention treatment," I reminded her.

"Because there isn't a treatment, per say. She needs to rest and adapt to being in her own time. When she's ready, she'll wake up. Until then there isn't much that can be done."

Lucifer's face twisted, and before he could snap at the poor woman Bash asked, "I'm an incubus. Can I use my powers to poke around in her mind? I may find a way to fix her through her psyche."

"Ethically, I would advise against that. She hasn't consented to you entering her psyche, nor do we have any directive on file," Dr. Greene responded in a serious tone. Obviously she didn't know the kind of men she was dealing with.

We moved way past being ethical with Diana when we kidnapped her from a nightclub and faked her death. I was unethical on day one when I visited her in the jazz bar she worked in.

"Well good thing I don't need your approval for alternative treatment," Lucifer huffed, dismissing the doctor by walking back into his daughter's room. Bash and I followed him in, in case we needed to intervene in some way. He wasn't himself, not that I could blame him.

"Fuck the doctor, we're going in there and fixing it ourselves," he spoke loudly as he paced in front of her bed.

"Luci, why don't we give it a few days, then if she doesn't make progress on her own, we can intervene," Michael suggested in a soft tone, trying to placate the man.

Lucifer spun on his heels, as if he was going to snap at Michael, but one stern look from his ex had the devil himself rounding his shoulders.

"I'm going to take your father for a walk, and we can talk to the doctors again. Try to come up with a concrete plan," Michael murmured to Oisín.

After they left, the crew–plus Oisín, Charlie, and Judas–all looked at each other.

"I think you should take a peek into her psyche and see what's going on," I said to Bash. "Don't prod or mess with anything, though. We just need a more accurate assessment of what's going on in there.

"I don't particularly trust you to go rooting around in my sister's brain," Oisín scoffed as he held her hand. "You decimated her. She cried for weeks over you assholes. And knowing you, you're not even sorry about it."

"I am sorry. I've had some time to reflect, and I handled the situation in a less than ideal way." Bash needed to work on his apology—it sucked.

"If my father approves it, I'm going with you. I won't let you twist her mind or alter it in any way," he insisted.

"Fine. But don't complain when you see things you don't want to see." Bash sat at the foot of her bed, grabbing her foot under the blanket and squeezing it.

"Once Lucifer is back from his walk with Michael, we can get him alone and start planning," Az said. He'd been quietly standing in the corner this whole time, staring at her from afar.

"Good plan, Feathers," Ares agreed. It was nice to know he could be there for Az when I couldn't. I was supposed to be working on my relationship with him, showing him I was serious about us. But I had dropped the ball, too consumed by my sadness to spare it any thought.

I was a fuck up and a failure, just like my father always told me I was.

"Desmond?" Bash's voice broke me from my musing, bringing me back to the here and now. "Got a mindlink from Lucifer, we're going to meet him here tonight at half past eleven."

"Okay, sounds good." I moved next to the bed and ran my fingers through Diana's hair, cupping her cheek in my hand.

Her face remained impassive, not even the slightest twitch or expression.

I'm not sure if you can hear me, dollface, but I'm sorry. Things are going to be different now. We'll get you out of this mess.

After spendingthe past hour pacing, I couldn't wait any longer and arrived at her room at eleven. I sat on her bedside, staring at her for a few moments, willing her to wake up. She had always woken up when we stared at her.

"Desmond, go away," she groaned, rolling onto her stomach and burying her head under a pillow. "You're such a creep."

"Wake up, you're six minutes late coming down for breakfast, and I'm not adjusting your training schedule. You only have twenty four minutes to get ready and grab a bite," I reminded her. "Tick tock."

"Ugh, if I had a dad you'd be way more annoying than him. Keep on ordering me around, but I'm not calling you Daddy."

"I don't know, Little Goddess. He really enjoys being called Daddy, especially in bed," Ares laughed at the doorway. "You need help in the shower?"

"No," I answered her. "Ares and I are going downstairs. You have twenty three minutes now," I snapped.

I was too hard on her when we lived in New York. No wonder she found it so easy to be mad at me. I was an asshole—an emotionally closed off perfectionist that pushed her to her limits because I wanted what I thought was best for her.

I took her hand and pushed anticipation through her. The kind you'd feel before going to an amusement park or seeing a concert. I promised her I wouldn't use this power on her, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Maybe she'd be so excited that the anticipation would wake her up…

The monitor showed her heart rate rising, but nothing else. She was still, expressionless, as if she was in a deep sleep. I was running out of options, getting more discouraged by the minute. After months of separation, she was right here, and I couldn't do anything about it. I thought back to the supposed fairy tales the human world told its children—obviously not knowing they were real events—the ones Diana would have heard growing up. One of them involved a prince kissing a woman and waking her up, and at this point I felt desperate enough to try anything.

It"s worth a shot.

I bent over and kissed her lips, making sure to give her a good, solid kiss. But nothing happened.

"Yeah, I tried that earlier today—it didn't work," Bash commented, revealing himself from the shadows in the corner of the room. "But it's very Grimm of you to try."

"How long have you been lurking there?"

"Long enough." He sat in one of the chairs by her bedside. "I'm not looking forward to this. Her psyche is going to be a mess."

"It's our fault if it is," I chastised us both.

Before Bash could reply, Lucifer, Michael, and Oisín arrived, engrossed in their own conversation.

"We know other incubi. Why can't they come in and try?" Oisín groused, shooting Bash a dirty look.

"No, I don't trust anyone else to do it," Lucifer said with finality, shutting the conversation down. He swung his attention to Bash. "I'm sure you're well aware that if Oisín and I even get a hint of you fucking around where you shouldn't or altering her psyche in anyway, you'll regret it?"

"I wouldn't," Bash gritted out.

Hopefully we would find a way to bring her back and this wasn't an epic mistake.