He'll come around

Helen turned around as she was about to leave half an hour later. "What will we do about Jacob?" she asked, sounding dejected and weary.

"He'll come around." Aria said, trying to make her voice as hopeful as she could. Helen nodded and left. Aria sighed, glad to be finally alone. Even Joseph was not there outside the recovery ward. She was glad that he had other things to do than hang out on that tree.

Aria slumped into her pillows as she let her mind wander to other topics, topics she had not yet discussed about with anyone. But she would have to, she supposed.

Aria had expected Jacob to come see her that day, and she was a bit disappointed when he didn't. "He'll come around. This was his first life and death situation after all." had been Joseph's comment when he came to bid her good night just before lights out.

Though Aria had given him a glare with the retort, "Yeah, like you stand at the border putting your life on the life daily." she supposed he was right on some level. It had been a rather traumatic event, especially for Jacob, who had never been caught in the middle of something like this. This on top of the fact that he probably blamed himself for the whole thing. Aria shook her head, all of them found a way to blame that horrible incidents on themselves, didn't they?

"He'll come around when he's ready." Aria muttered to herself and settled for a good night's rest.

In the West tower . . . .

Helen sat in her room at her table. She had a book open in front of her and her fingers were moving slowly across the raised letters in the book. Though it had been lights out for about half an hour, Helen didn't really want to go to sleep. She was afraid that she would once again have those dreadful nightmares.

"As long as I can divert my mind, I'll be fine. And if I fall asleep when I'm able to barely open my eyes, maybe I'll be fine then." Helen muttered to herself, shaking her head to remove the sleep from her eyes, then added, "God, I'm exhausted!!" with a yawn.

Just a few seconds later, Helen's head snapped in the direction of the door. She warily stood up from her chair and asked, "Who is it?" Upon getting no reply, Helen whispered to herself, "It's weird. I can swear I heard something like a knock." She felt around for her stick and took two steps towards the door, once again calling out, "Who's there?" Helen was beginning to think she had imagined the noise when it came again, not exactly a knock, but some noise outside her door.

Helen immediately stiffened and listened closely. She was half-sure she was paranoid, but Helen thought she heard the shuffling of feet outside her door. "Hello? Is someone there?" she tried one more time.

"Just what I need. More food for my nightmares." Helen muttered in frustration, deciding to not open the door until someone called out. Being kind of a celebrity ever since childhood, Helen had heard enough stories about kidnapping.

"What have you convinced yourself now?" Helen jumped on her feet and put a hand on her heart, which seemed ready to jump out of her chest upon hearing a voice.