Upon waking up, Octavia felt… different.

She wasn’t exactly rejuvenated, and the light in the hospital ward told her it was still night, or maybe very early morning, but the fact that she was alive had somehow cleared her head a little. Yesterday’s (today’s?) madness seemed to have gone away, replaced by a sense of guilt and an understanding of what she had done wrong.

She lifted her eyes to see Vinyl sitting on a chair next to the bed, watching her attentively. “Hi…” Octavia managed weakly.

“You almost died of blood loss,” Vinyl said sternly. She tried to be dispassionate, but she couldn’t be emotionless when it came down to Octavia. “They had no blood of your type so I donated.”

So now there is some Vinyl in me, a thought ran through Octavia’s head. Huh. We share the same blood type. “I... “ Octavia gulped. “Thank you?”

“What happened, Octavia?” Vinyl’s voice carried no malice, no hatred. It was full of worry and pain. “We have a row, then you show up at my door all drunk and bleeding from your shoulder. What happened to you, Tavi?”

Hearing the familiar form of addressing, Octavia managed a weak smile. “I… Can we forget it?” She lifted her arm weakly, trying to reach Vinyl. The spinner quickly got up from the chair, standing next to her lover, and took Octavia’s hand in hers. “Can we forget about everything?”

Vinyl shook her head somberly. “No, Tavi. That’s your way of dealing with problems. And we tried that.” She motioned around the hospital ward. “And look how that worked out.” She furrowed her brows sternly. “So now we’ll follow my method of dealing with problems.”

“Running away and smoking?” Octavia jested mirthlessly, automatically, before she could stop herself. No, such words would only hurt. She had to care. She had to be calm, and humble, and gentle. She had to follow up on this chance life had given her. “Sorry.”

“Telling everything,” Vinyl answered, squeezing Octavia’s hand tight. “Sharing our worries. If we want to keep this whole thing up, we need to have honesty.” The DJ sighed and sat back on the chair. “I want to trust you, Tavi. But you need to earn it. You’ve earned my love.” Octavia caught a breath. “Now you need to earn my trust.”

“Okay,” Octavia said too quickly, way too quickly. Should she have thought this through? Though, this was exactly the chance life had given her. This was her opportunity to bring Vinyl back - not for herself; but for the both of us. No, not even that. “I want to bring you back for you, and me, and Neon,” Octavia spoke aloud suddenly, finding her realisation both weird and appealing. “And Frederic too. I want us to be together because I want to care.”

She rose in bed with a grunt, motioning for Vinyl to stay put on the chair. “Everything? Okay. You know what happened to me in the past.” Vinyl nodded with a pained gulp. “After that, I could no longer care for anyone. I thought Frederic made me learn how to care, but I was wrong,” the cellist confessed bitterly. “I only wanted him because it made me feel better. But then I met you.” Octavia smiled slightly. “I met you, and I thought, this is the woman I want, but not for myself. For both of us. Okay,” she quickly amended, catching Vinyl’s judging look, “at first I just wanted to have sex with you. But then, as I spent more and more time around you, I felt that… I felt that I was in love.” Octavia closed her eyes. “I still am. I love you, Vinyl, and you taught me to care. For you. Which is why I took you to Montenegro.”

Octavia lay back, feeling dizzy and tired. “I wanted to shield you from everything because I really care for you, Vinyl. But I didn’t care about your brother. I couldn’t care for anyone else,” she said truthfully. “Now I want, I really want to learn to care for the others. For Neon, because he’s your brother. For Frederic, because he was the one who helped me see men in a different light.” Octavia took a deep breath, which made her head spin even worse. “I really do want to care. And I want to be with you.” She fell silent for a while, then asked weakly, “Give me another chance? Can we begin again? I know this sounds hard to believe, but I’ve changed. I think I have. I won’t be this selfish. Just please, please let me love you.”

Vinyl was silent for a long while. Then she got up, leant over the bed, and pressed her lips against Octavia’s. It wasn’t a passionate kiss - nor was it a deep one or a particularly keen one. It was a seal on their pact, the signature Vinyl put on Octavia’s conditional leave. It wasn’t a gesture of love.

It was a gesture of newfound trust.

“Let’s try this,” Vinyl said finally, upon breaking the kiss. “I won’t try to establish a three-strikes system or anything.” She took a step away from the bed, with Octavia automatically trying to reach for her girlfriend with her open arms. “We all make mistakes. But I will feel it if you really want to change for the better - and I will feel it if you just try to get to me without caring about my family and, and…” Suddenly, Vinyl broke into tears.

Octavia tried to stand up, but it was too hard, so she fell back on the bed, lying there hopelessly. “Vinyl, Vinyl,” she called out. “Vinyl, love, what’s wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong!” the spinner replied through thick sobs. “Nini is in a mental hospital, you almost died from blood loss, and I am torn apart! I am torn between you!” Vinyl slammed her fist into her knee. “I want to love Neon and make life the same as it was before you. But at the same time, I want you!” She chanted, “I want you, I love you, I want you!”

With extreme effort, Octavia sat up in bed, tossing her legs off the bed, touching her bare feet against the cold floor. She couldn’t stand up yet, but this position gave her enough leverage to crush Vinyl in her embrace, cooing softly as the spinner cried into her shoulder. “Vinyl, everything is not as complicated as it seems,” she said, trying to find the right words. Her mind turned up blank, and yet she knew the words: they were coming to her in an instant. “Neon will heal. We will live together, the three of us. We’ll buy a flat with rooms and soundproof walls. We will all be happy together. We’ll finish that song. We’ll…” Get married. “We’ll figure it out.”

“How, Tavi…” Vinyl sobbed. “To f-figure something out… We need to fix Neon. We need to fix our r-relationship.” She dried her tears with the back of her hand, released from Octavia’s embrace. “But you’re right. We need to do this. We need to do all of this step by step.” She sniffed one last time, then collected herself. “One trouble at a time.”

“Yes.” Octavia nodded resolutely. “We’ll need to visit Neon. I need to apologise to him. And then… Then, if he forgives me, we’ll try to get him out of there and start our new life together.” She paused, looking at her girlfriend with determination. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll work from the shadows and still try to get him out.”

For a few moments, Vinyl just sat there on the chair blinking, her eyes red and puffy from the crying. Suddenly, she stood up, taking off her shirt. “That’s it. We’re doing this right now.”

“W-what?” Octavia felt her spinner’s hands on her as she was forcefully laid back into bed and pinned to the aforementioned bed by Vinyl, who was taking off her jeans. “Vinyl, you don’t think we’re g-going to?”

“It’s been too long.” Vinyl kissed Octavia’s neck. “We’ve been both so stressed. We need it.” She began to take off Octavia’s T-shirt.

“Vinyl, love,” Octavia tried vainly, feeling arousal crawling into her body, commanding her mind as well. “We aren’t really going to have sex on a hospital bed, right?”

“We are, Tavi.” Vinyl reached for the switch and turned off the light. “We totally are.”

Next Chapter: 5. Back on Track Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes