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He’s still sitting on the ring when the oddest sensation flows over his entire body. The pain radiating out from his wounds vanishes as if someone had done a Healing on each individual vein, artery, and capillary, and the sensation is so astonishing all he can do is sit and blink.
A tentative touch on his cheek yields nothing but the familiar feel of stubble, and though a hasty glimpse of his abdomen shows nothing but skin and scars, Saul still can’t believe what his senses seem to be telling him.
And then he’s up and running before his stunned brain is conscious of having made a decision, nearly plowing into Ben halfway back to the school.
They’re talking over each other – Ben’s saying something about a Burned One, and Sky, and that Bloom girl that’s been giving Farah fits – and finally Saul just gives up and hauls the other man to the greenhouse, getting filled in on the way.
Never a patient man to begin with, Saul has to practically force himself to stay still as he jacks up his shirt so that Ben can get to his bandages.
He’s pretty sure it’s shock that has his tone sounding almost normal when he asks if things are alright.
Ben’s confirmation sounds as stunned as Saul feels, but Saul’s relief is tempered by the sight of a fully armed Sky standing in the doorway of the greenhouse, and he jerks his shirt down and is already in lecture mode as he rises from his seat.
He jabs the air in front of Sky accusingly, relieved his finger isn’t shaking. “You – are an idiot.”
“I know.”
But the sweet, sweet release of knowing he isn’t going to die – at least, not today – is overpowering, and added to that the nearly volatile cocktail of emotions he ran the gamut of while Ben was filling him in and Saul doesn’t – can’t –hold back.
“A stupid, impulsive, reckless idiot.”
Relief and delayed fear for Sky makes his voice progressively louder with each adjective, forcing Sky to speak louder in turn as he tries to redirect the conversation.
“I know. I know! But is it better? Is it better! Professor Harvey?”
Sky’s demand for answers is met with a sly look and a smirk, and friend or not, Ben’s silent ‘How the tables have turned, haven’t they?’ is just begging for retribution.
Saul was not that bad at Sky’s age, and Ben damn well knows it.
“Don’t smile at him,” Saul snaps, exasperated.
But the exasperation vanishes when Sky – never the most physically demonstrative kid – pulls him into a hug and Saul barely hesitates, clasping him back in a hold just as tight.
Saul’s emotions are tripping over each other like water over rapids, but the overriding feeling is that they’re going to be alright again.
He stops Sky from drawing back with a hand clasped around the back of his head.
“Your Dad would’ve been proud,” he says, knowing it for both the truth and a massive understatement even as he tries not to choke on the words. Sky’s fought a Burned One and survived; and the fact that fully trained Specialists did and didn’t is something that Saul doesn’t doubt will get added to his nightmare reel.
They knock foreheads in a ritual they haven’t done since Sky grew old enough to pronounce it ‘weird’, and now the boy’s grinning from ear-to-ear but Saul’s pretty sure he’s one wrong moment away from breaking down, so he releases the boy with a brisk “Good lad.”
Saul’s not sure what he’s more relieved about: that he lived, that Sky survived facing a Burned One, or that Sky is still blissfully unaware that he should actually hate his adoptive father.
Not to mention he suspects that even the appearance of a second Burned One is still only part of the opening act for whatever shit-storm is actually headed their way.
A grim streak of humour goes through him as he wonders if Ben has any alcohol stashed in the greenhouse.
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