Broken ribs and nerve damage certainly sucks.
Fortunately, having someone to cuddle with made it all much more bearable.
The hospital beds weren't exactly sized for more than one even slightly large person, which made any sort of cuddling tricky, the issue partially alleviated by Riley being the size of an overly jumpy garden gnome.
And Maddy being naturally flexible.
The end result of this game of condensed, crippled twister was Riley's head snuggled into Maddy's shoulder, the broken arm resting on her side, both girls forced to partially lay on their sides just to not slip off of it.
Neither particularly minded that much.
Especially Riley, snuggled up to Maddy from the front, her scritching and massaging paws combined with the soft tail holding her close from the back, both resting and unwinding from their combined anxieties, pets and shared warmth doing wonders at getting rid of tension.
The occasional smooches and light teasing may have helped as well.
In their shared bliss neither really noticed or cared about the passage of time, Riley close to dozing off with a goofy smile on her face before both snugglers were suddenly startled out of their relaxation with a loud knock on the door. The human girl almost fell off the bed in surprise before Maddy held her tighter, gently pulling her to the middle of the bed as she herself got up from it, stretching all over with a quiet yawn, her feather duster of a tail making her girlfriend smile before she spoke up-
"Uh, come on in!"
Riley was busy trying to appear inconspicuous, patting down her hair and pulling the covers over herself before she saw Rick peek into the room, his wide smile at the cuddlers' crime scene immediately reflected on both girls' faces, with added blushes.
"Don't worry, it's just me for now, kids are still at the arcade. How are you girls doing?"
Lovestruck.
Same.
"We're alright, d-did something happen?" Riley sat up on the bed as Rick walked in, his usual jacket missing to fully reveal the comfy sweater underneath, the deliberately terrible Christmas patterns somehow managing to look endearing.
"Well, not really, just that the kids were really starting to ask to, well, see if you're finally awake, heh. And... there's something I need to talk to you about in private." Rick responded softly, any teasing that might have been there gentle and well meaning. The follow-up definitely didn't fill Riley in with any more confidence, thought process thankfully interrupted by the other lovebird as she spoke up in return-
"Has it really been that long?" Maddy asked, genuinely confused as she dug into her pocket, soon realizing that yes, it's been just a bit over two and a half hours since her visit.
"Time sure does fly, haha. Maddy, if you ever wanna visit just text me and I'll give you a lift, it's no problem." Dad chuckled out loud at seeing Maddy's reaction, his smile as wide as ever as she looked back at him in appreciation.
"Thank you Mr. Asher!" She responded gleefully, quickly glancing back at Riley in excitement, both almost giddy at the, uh...
...possibilities?
"Well, hope you two had fun! Sorry I had to barge in like that, but I assumed better just me than the whole family." There was a hint of genuine apology in his voice, Riley's response cut short as Maddy dismissed it nonchalantly-
"Oh it's no biggie. You said you were being discharged tomorrow, right?" She turned towards Riley, a sly glint in her eyes as she thought up of things they could do together, as opposed to other things they couldn't do.
Yet.
"Right, hope that goes well." Riley quickly snapped back, Maddy answering with a toothy grin as she head over for the door-
"Well, see you on Saturday then~"
Even her bad attempts at a singsong voice were sweet.
"Take care Maddy!" Both Rick and Riley waved her goodbye before the latter closed the door and took a deep breath, his smile faltering a bit as he turned towards his daughter and took a seat.
Something was clearly wrong, Riley gulping a bit as she slid deeper into her bed, tension rising slightly as she questioned, her voice cracking-
"What's wrong?"
Rick immediately caught onto the tension, smile widening a bit as he shook his head a bit, getting up and opening the window a bit as he responded-
"Don't worry sweetie, just wanted to get you up to speed on the criminal investigation side of things- that is if you want me to, I completely understand if you just want to forget about it all." His voice was soft as he slid closer, any hint of worry that might have been in his expression having washed away fully.
Clarification did wonders for Riley as well, banishing any tension that threatened to creep up on her.
"Well, yeah, I'd appreciate it if anything changed since yesterday." While the subject still didn't exactly make her the most comfortable she could be, hearing it from someone she actually trusted could make all the difference.
She definitely didn't expect him to look so dumbfounded in response, his head tilting slightly as he blinked the confusion away.
"Yesterday?" He sounded baffled in a way she never remembered hearing him. The change of tone combined with his expression would've been ten times as funny if the subject discussed wasn't so serious.
"Yeah? A couple cops came over in the morning and asked me to tell them everything I could remember and then told me how the investigation was going overall." Riley responded flatly, joining Rick in his bafflement.
"What the..." He trailed off into his thoughts, expression first shocked, then aghast, and finally, really quite pissed, fists clenching tight.
"What's wrong?" She was taken aback by his reaction, her dad visibly trembling before closing his eyes as he breathed the anger away, shoulders slumping back down before he looked back at his daughter, voice much, much quieter-
"I'm sorry. F-for this, that you had to deal with them, it's not even legal to get your testimony without a guardian present."
"I-it's fine dad, I promise. Y-yeah, it wasn't any fun, but that's in the past now, and now you're here." Riley answered softly as she sat back up, soft smile filling her features as she opened her good arm for a hug.
A penitent expression shifted to a soft smile as he scrambled over and gently embraced his daughter, presence of both calming the other down.
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"Well, guess everyone else has waited enough already, heh." He chuckled slowly as he let go of Riley and got up, stretching a bit as he turned towards the door, his daughter calling out as she realized something-
"W-wait! D-did they tell you how much the guy who... did this, was paid?" She called out quietly, the contradiction resurfacing inside her, still refusing to make any more sense.
"No, of course not. Did they... tell you?" The question made him freeze in place before turning back towards Riley, expression inscrutable.
"Yeah. A-apparently it was something like five hundred bucks."
"...that makes no sense." He answered flatly, trying to blink his confusion away.
"I know, that's why I brought it up. Something isn't right about it and I'm not liking it one bit." She muttered out, a hint of a grimace creeping up on her once more.
Rick took a seat once more, expression deep in very confused thought, making him constantly open his mouth as if to speak up, only to abandon the idea and think it over some more, every attempt resulting in a mental equivalent of a shrug.
"D-do they know anything about the- well, him?" Riley chimed in once more, mulling over the mystery, concluding that if that abnormal amount of money was real, the perpetrator must have not been a normal person either to accept it.
"They didn't tell me that much, a divorcee who had his kid taken away due to drug abuse, that's basically all I know. Which doesn't help in figuring out the motive much." Rick verbally mulled over what he knew, shaking his head slightly at feeling so unable to come up with anything.
"Yeah... the only reason I can think of that someone would do something like that for so little is sheer desperation, and that just doesn't add up with him turning himself in." She responded, her dad answering with slow nodding before standing back up and taking a few deep breaths.
"I... think we should move on Riley. I understand that you really want to get to the bottom of it in a personal way, but I doubt us idly theorycrafting is going to do much except making us relive the painful memories."
She pondered on his words, finding it difficult to disagree on a rational level, uncomfortableness of it all impossible to ignore. But still, it kept drilling into her mind, not hurtful, but refusing to be ignored.
But between it and feeling Timmy snuggle into her lap, she definitely preferred the latter, not even a contest.
Riley nodded up at him, taking deeper breaths to try and clear her mind as much as she could, his calm smile quickly spreading to her face.
"Be right back sweetie, but first-" He snuck a paw into the bulging pocket of his pants before tossing a small bag of peanut butter candy towards her, Riley somehow managing to catch it with her left hand. Before she could even ask as to why did he get her another one, Rick was already at the door, sending her off with a wink and a smile.
She wasn't gonna say no to that.
Riley laid back down on the bed, placing the freshly received bag back at the bedside table before grabbing her phone, half emptied battery icon reminding her to finally plug the thing in.
With the battery filling up and not down for once she was free to... waste some more of her life on the internet, unfulfilling scrolling not doing much at keeping the annoying contradiction away, Riley staring at the ceiling and trying to keep it away from taking over once more.
What was the point, it's not like she'd somehow have an epiphany without any further input.
...but what if she got some?
She navigated out of her browser towards the contacts, scrolling under finding her grandma, stretching her overused wrist before starting her typing-
'''
Riley Asher: granma, i have a question,
what do you think could motivate someone
to do something bad for a disproprtially
small payment but then still turn himself in?
'''
Not exactly the most subtle, bit it had to suffice.
With that out of the way she made herself comfortable and put her phone away, letting the poor thing sip on the wall outlet as she snuggled in under the covers, leeching on the leftover warmth left behind by Maddy.
She even managed to consciously relax her shoulders for once, certainly a commendable achievement.
Just as drowsiness started to creep up on her once more, her ears caught a fast paced series of thuds coming from the corridor, making her tilt her head as she listened in.
Was... was someone running?
She listened in intently, the light steps growing and louder, with an occasional loud squeak of rubber soles slipping on the hospital floor. A few moments later, the steps had almost made her way to her room before they absuptly stopped, a door to the room next to hers opening up with a loud croak.
"Oh, sorry!"
Timmy?
Before she even had a chance to focus on whether the muffled voice she heard was really his, the door was closed as rapidly as it was opened, the dull thud jolting her awake as the excited steps made their way up to her room, before flinging the door open.
"HI RILEY!"
She barely registered the black and white blur running across the room, only really getting a good look once he was already climbing onto her bed, bursting with soft laughter as she helped him with her good arm, pulling Timmy into a tight embrace.
"Good morning Timmy, how are you?"
The tyke went unusually quiet as she held him, savoring the sisterly warmth, especially in the form of scritches to his very ruffled hair.
Not that Riley minded, they definitely weren't in a rush.
Pausing her scritches for a while to let her overused wrist rest gave the lil' kit the opening he needed, taking a deep breath as if to start speaking before he noticed the dirt his shoes were leaving on the bedsheets, squeaking out an apologetic 'Sorry!' before carefully taking them off and laying them down on the side of the bed.
And proceeding with his excited recounting of today's adventures.
"You were asleep so dad took us to an arcade and it was AWESOME! There was the one where you shot at aliens on the screen with a REAL gun a-and they would fly all over and-" She could hardly suppress a giggle at the first bit, the reality being much more cuddly than the hyped tyke could've expected.
She half listened as he tried his best at recounting every single game he and his siblings played, one out of maybe four words on average making any sort of sense to her. Certainly didn't stop her from nuzzling and cherishing the wonderful kiddo, only really hoping that the thing about 'real guns' was some sort of hyperbole.
Even with his lightning fast squeaks, Timmy didn't manage to finish going over every single game before the rest of the family gathered around one by one, Riley holding back chest-aching laughter at the realization that the kit didn't notice everyone else catching up to him, continuing to happily go on and on. His big sister greeted everyone else with a wave and a quiet gesture, not wanting to ruin his fun.
But eventually even he had to take a breather, leaning up to go grab some water and finally realizing that everyone else had finally caught up with him, looking around dumbfounded.
Riley's injuries regretted her subsequent laughter.
Thankfully, the rest of her didn't one bit, especially with everyone else joining in before gathering into a group hug, familial warmth combined with loads of drugs proving to be the best cure for severe injuries once again.
After everyone had calmed down and Timmy had finally managed to fill his sippy cup with water, the discussion mostly died down to chit chat, Andrew busy preparing yet another board game as Lily snuck once more onto her big sis' bed, repeating the comfy configuration from yesterday.
Except this time, she was gonna be anything but an idle observer in the game being played.
***
"I exchange two timber for one grain, three sheep for one ore, use them to upgrade my settlement to a city, and have one-two-four-five-seven victory points, plus two for the largest army, plus one in my hand, and I win!"
Riley had no idea what was going on, but Lily's triumphant pose combined with Andrew's silent muttering of 'fuuuuuck' made up for the confusing hour and a half up to that point.
Especially with Timmy being delegated the role of distinguished decider-of-where-to-build-stuff. The card for the longest road was her pride, with the downside of the kit not deciding to build any settlements or cities in his quest to circumvent the entire playable area with roads.
And he was remarkably close to finishing that goal as well, at least as much as Lily's seaside conquest would let him.
Ella looked up from her book at the game as she heard her daughter triumphantly win, rewarding her with some scritches as well as with a couple of the peanut butter candies, before doing the same to Timmy and Riley, and with a bit of exertion, Andrew as well.
Rick got a kiss and he'd better be happy with it.
"So, wanna play again?" The champion chirped up just as Andrew was getting ready for cleanup, them two and Rick exchanging determined glances and collectively deciding on 'of course, this time I'll win!'.
Timmy could play, too.
Riley decided to join her mom and take a break, grabbing her thankfully now fully charged phone and browsing various stuff on it, the backdrop of the rest of the family engaged in deep strategy and childish banter alike melting any worries she might have had.
Just being there, with them, lighting up Lily's expression with a gentle ruffling of her hair amidst her deep focus, tickling Timmy's tummy as he played with all the resource cards that weren't brick or lumber, resting her own head on her mom's shoulder after she'd slid her chair closer to her bed...
Was this what christmas feels like?
Of course, aside from the ouchies afflicting her body, that is.
Regardless of the actual answer, she wasn't gonna say no to savoring the sensations around her, eventually dozing off into a nap as everyone else played, arms still wrapped around the road-building tyke.
Nobody else really minded, lowering their voices and continuing their play, Lily taking her sweet revenge by being the one to scritch her sister as much as she wanted, without any repercussions.
Aside from a dreamy smile on Riley's face, that is.