February 8th, 1890 — Hogwarts Hospital Wing

He was finally settled. It had taken an excruciating hour in the Hospital Wing simply to get him bandaged up, and another for the first round of potions to subdue the pain coursing through his body. He hardly felt like a person; his whole body felt like a foreign object, sort of like how a leg felt when it cramped up. He'd already asked thrice if they'd had to remove his fingers during the bandaging process, because he couldn't feel those at all.

But by the third hour, Cameron had settled into his sorrow. His team-mates had flocked to his bedside, given their well-wishes, and now he was left alone—or almost alone.

Only Sloane had remained after the others had left, though her initial silence made it easy to forget she was there. Her blue hair had faded, but it was burned into his mind as a reminder that she'd worried for him.

(And to be honest, it made him feel like he'd accomplished something that morning.)

"You missed Herbology," he said all of a sudden, his gaze slipping between her and the grandfather clock across the room from his bed. "Professor Skeeter might send out a search party."

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Sloane Bixby

  

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Despite her hasty retreat from the pitch, Sloane's determination had faltered part way up the grounds as she followed after Cam. She knew from experience that it would take a while to patch him up, so she wound up going back to her dorm and getting ready for the rest of the day. In the end everyone else had beaten her there and so she kind of lingered in the back, waiting for everyone else to dissipate.

It didn't take too long, and she found herself presumptuously perched on the end of his bed, leaning against the rail, feet tucked up beneath her, despite the looks from the nurse. There was a lot of mixed emotions flowing through her right now. A little embarrassment, obvious concern, a whole lot of what next. 

"Somehow I highly doubt Professor Skeeter will miss me making a mess today." That was most likely true. "Feeling alive?" This was the longest conversation they hadn't had about quidditch in weeks and she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

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The air between them had changed immensely over the last hour. He still struggled to find the right words to say, but the struggle was no longer fueled by resentment but his absence from her personal life over the past few months. He supposed this is what they needed: a situation where he could not physically avoid her.

"Why would you ever think that?" he joked, remembering the times when the group of Gryffindors had made a mess of their work station, even as far back to his second year. He'd missed spending time with the girls, even if he'd appreciated spending more time with the boys since his fight with Sloane. "But yes, I feel alive. Almost too alive," he answered, letting out a hiss as he lifted his arm to prove a point.

"I thought I'd be the last one on the team to fall of their broom. I swore Fairchild would be the first to drop," he quipped with a crooked, almost sad smile.

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Sloane simply shrugged. Herbology was far too fun not to make a mess sometimes! Plus the plants moved! Sometimes it just happened! It was one of few classes she actually enjoyed or was any kind of good at. Its tendency toward messiness was definitely part or the appeal as well.

"Ah well, do prefer you that way." She shrugged again a little, but didn't quite look at him when she said it. It was true, though lately it probably hadn't seemed that way for a while.

Chuckling now, Sloane nodded her head in agreement. "If not me, she'd likely be next." Sloane fell off her broom frequently, but usually trying to work on a hard maneuver or when learning something new, like she had when Rufus had tried last summer.

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It was impossible not to notice the tension between. Every statement had an unsaid double meaning, as if they were metaphorically dancing around the subject that needed to be addressed. Cameron couldn't find the right words, or any words, really, to express how he felt in that moment.

"Well I'm not going to die," he mumbled. He wished they were close like they used to be. They'd always better communicated through smiles, teasing, and generally shoving each other around, but it was nearly impossible to imagine doing that now. He just didn't know the why.

"I wouldn't let you fall off your broom. I learned the cushioning charm." Surprisingly. Cammie had always had a short attention span in his classes—all except Defence Against the Dark Arts. Still, he was sure he would have remembered it anyways if Sloane had been the one to fall off her broom. "The nurse thinks I'll be out by the next match, but I may have to argue to get permission to play."

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Sloane made a noncommittal shrug in his direction, though she smiled. Things still felt off, so she carefully flopped down on the end of his bed to stare at the ceiling rather than him. She wasn't very big, and she certainly didn't take up very much room, but she pressed her side against the railing of the bed anyway, careful not to jostle the bed itself too much.

"You can't catch me every time, I fall off all the time, let's be serious. I almost broke my arm practicing rolls with Rufus this summer." So many bruises from that one. Of course she'd been trying to work out her own frustrations at the same time; hadn't worked out well. Honestly she'd thought she'd broken a rib or two, but the pain had subsided after a few days, so that was highly unlikely. "Well that's good at least. I can't watch for the snitch and play chaser at the same time." Impossible. Plus she was a shit chaser to begin with.

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Cameron winced at the image of a battered and broken Sloane on the quidditch pitch. She was just so tiny; would she even survive a fall from a similar height? She'd always been tougher than she'd looked, but that didn't change the fact that she was still at least half a foot shorter than him!

"You didn't tell me about that," he mumbled, partly to himself. She hadn't really told him anything since the school year had started, and they were almost halfway through February. Would things ever return back to normal? He was beginning to doubt it. If she still kept up her barrier when he was in the hospital wing, how would he go about breaking it when everything went back to normal.

"You won't have to. I'll get back on the team," he replied, sounding discouraged. "Maybe I won't fall off my broom next time."

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"Yes well," She mumbled, still staring at the ceiling. "You haven't spoken to me much this year." It was a quiet gripe, but it was the truth and part of the reason this whole conversation was still feeling awkward. Sloane hadn't really meant to say it aloud, but wasn't upset about it either. They would have to hash this out eventually if anything was to ever chance. She wasn't so sure she could just to back to the way things were without knowing what it was that had truly gone on between them.

Shrugging, though he likely couldn't see it, Sloane added, "I'm sure it'll be fine. Nobody wants me to play chaser anyway, terrible as I am." Now if she'd been allowed to play beater, that would have been a different story...

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He hadn't talked to her much, and although he knew that to be true, he was afraid to admit it because he'd then have to explain why—and Cameron couldn't explain just why. He was hurt, but he couldn't remember what had set him off to begin with. It was something unimportant, he remembered, but it had hurt him, and badly.

"Yeah," he mumbled in return. "Suppose I haven't." But he wanted to, now more than ever. He missed the teasing and the jests now that he was stuck in bed surrounded by the gloomy nurse and potions he didn't want to take. He did his homework alone, and reviewed his lessons alone. He wanted a friend that wasn't his step-sister or Sloane's friends—he wanted to be around Sloane.

"Would you stop talking to me for good if they didn't let me on the quidditch team anymore?" The nurse said he should be fine, but there was always a chance he wouldn't be. What if their friendship, which had been built around their shared love of quidditch, dissolved because he couldn't play anymore?

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And apparently he still wasn't going to talk to her. Sloane propped herself up on her elbows, eyebrows high, a look of pure incredulity on her face. Seriously? She nearly spat the word out at him, but managed to refrain by physically biting her tongue.

"No, but I might if you don't tell me what the hell is wrong." Holy shit she just wanted to know what the fuck was wrong with him, or her, or both of them at this point. She needed to know so she could either fix it or start accepting that maybe she couldn't and move on. For all she thought she'd put a damper on the frustration, he managed to pull it back out of her almost instantly. Fortunately for her, he had nowhere to go and she planned to pester it out of him.

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Cameron's eyes went wide. Had she just... no, she definitely did. He rarely heard such vulgarities spoken inside the walls of Hogwarts, and even more rarely from its female students. It shouldn't be a surprise, though; Sloane wasn't exactly a Sisse Thompsett. Even more shocking (somehow) was her demand.

"I - I don't know," he started lamely, because he wasn't sure exactly what she was referring to, and even if it was about the awkwardness between them, he couldn't answer why this had continued on for this long. "You're not talking... about... my leg..., are you?" She was angry, so he supposed not.

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This time she sat all of the way up, sighing and rolling her eyes. Clearly she wasn't going to get anywhere even if he was stuck here. Well, he could be stuck here all alone if this was what she was going to get out of him. She could not be more over dancing around this subject.

Sliding towards the edge of the bed, Sloane landed deftly and bent to pick up her school bag. "Maybe Skeeter will excuse me for being a little late." Tossing the bag over her shoulder, she cast him one more pointed look. "Let me know when your leg feels better."

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The panic set in. She was leaving, and this wasn't going to be resolved, and he'd have no way to go after her because his leg was broken and was one mishap away from being magically bound to the bed by the nurse. He found the strange urge to grab her hand as she moved away from the bed, but he missed by a few inches and instead held up his open palm in a 'wait' motion.

"No - wait," he said. "We can... uh.. we can talk about what's wrong. I just-" Cammie sighed, trying to find the correct way to phrase it so he didn't (a) sound like a bumbling fool, or (b) say anything that would further upset her. "I was wrong," he added. "Wrong to ignore you. This whole year."

Silence. He waited for her, hoping she wouldn't blow it off or continue on her way as if he'd said nothing. Usually he could physically prevent her from leaving for long enough to to get a word out, or at least chase her if she escaped, but he was... pretty helpless right now, and he hated it.

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Finally.

Sloane stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder, letting her bag slowly fall back to its position on the floor. "Apology accepted, now tell me why." She brushed a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, rooted to the spot where she stood. Sloane didn't want to be mad at him, she didn't want to be lost in the dark, missing spending time with one of her best friends for some reason she had no idea about. If she just knew she could fix it, probably.

"I just want to go back to the way things were Cam, I hate this." She sighed, shoulders slumped as she looked at him helplessly.

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Cammie wanted to tell her—he really did!—but he could only do that if he remembered himself. "I wish I could remember what set it off," he said in a small voice, avoiding her gaze. "But things got so awkward in the first months of school that I couldn't find a way to try being your friend again. I didn't know what to talk to you about." She had to understand that. They'd both ignored each other; it wasn't like it had just been him.

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Sloane furrowed her brows at him; she didn't completely buy his story. His explanation wasn't very good and her disbelief was clear on her features. "That day on High Street was the last time we had some kind of normal conversation, and even then it didn't end quite right." She was still baffled by everything. Had one conversation, that she didn't even know anything was wrong, really screwed up their whole friendship.

"And then it just got progressively weirder." She still hated it. "There has to be a real reason. I can't fix it if I don't know what I did wrong."

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