The sudden, unexpected tugging all your insides feeling of side-along apparition was replaced, upon arrival, with blind panic. Alfred wouldn't have said he was content with his situation before they'd apparated away, but at least he'd known what was going on. He was dying, but he was dying on the Voyager and Zelda was there, holding on to his shirt. Now, he was somewhere else, and he didn't even know where right away. He was going to die here and he didn't even know where here was.

His breathing changed to rapid and shallow as he scanned his surroundings. It didn't hurt to inhale any more, but whether that was a result of the bubblehead charm she'd cast, their increased distance from the cursed Voyager, or just the fact that he hadn't yet tried to take a deep breath, he couldn't have said.

A hospital. They were in a hospital. That was probably a logical place to be, under the circumstances, but it didn't alleviate his panic — it just replaced the thought that he was going to die without knowing where he was with the new conviction that Zelda was going to leave, and he was going to die in some unfamiliar room surrounded by strangers. It didn't even matter if she wanted to leave, did it? They would make her leave — she had no particular claim to him, as far as the hospital was concerned, and they were going to whisk him away somewhere and he was going to die and he was never going to see her again.

He couldn't speak — he was still feeling dizzy and he didn't know whether this charm was helping or hurting — but he raised one hand to where hers was at his shirt and clutched it as tightly as he could manage. Don't leave.