i'll kiss her even

INT. WHEELER HOME ➜ 6 NOVEMBER 2015

The whole town felt as if it had been left out too long in the cold and then brought too close to a fire. Damp at the edges, warped through the middle, and carrying that faint, ugly smell of something beginning to burn. Even the dark looked wrong. It was too thick, too watchful. The roads around the edges of town lay under a skin of old frost and dead leaves, the trees standing bare and close together like a jury. The streetlamps buzzed weakly. Porch lights blinked on and off for no reason. Dogs had been barking for hours in distant neighborhoods and then, all at once, gone silent.

Inside the old house on the outskirts of Hawkins, the silence was worse.

Nancy stood in the front room with a gun in both hands and blood drying tacky along one side of her jaw, and across from her Robin smiled with someone else’s mouth.

Though it wasn't really a smile, Nancy knew, because smiling belonged to Robin. Smiling belonged to quick, crooked amusement and breathless sarcasm and a laugh that came out too loud in libraries and funerals and every place it shouldn’t. This was only an arrangement of teeth. A shape the thing inside her had learned from observation and was now using, badly.

“Nance,” Robin said.

Her voice was almost right.

That was the worst part. The Mind Flayer hadn't taken Robin’s face and made it monstrous. It had taken Robin whole and worn her with terrifying care. Robin’s clothes were still Robin’s. Her hair, always a little wild no matter what she did with it, hung into her eyes. Her cheek was bruised darkening purple from where Nancy had shoved her into a doorframe minutes ago. There was blood on Robin’s sleeve that Nancy knew belonged partly to her own body and partly to Robin and partly to neither of them anymore because the whole room had become a blur of struggle and panic and overturned furniture and terror.

Robin tilted her head, the movement almost birdlike and wrong.

“You know,” she said softly, “you always were the easier one to break. Even when you didn't show it."

Nancy’s grip tightened on the gun so hard her hands began to ache. “Stop talking.”

Robin took one lazy step forward.

"Why? You know it’s me.”

Nancy’s breath caught, sharp and painful. That was deliberate. The thing inside Robin knew exactly where to cut. It knew Robin knew her. It knew Nancy had memorized the tiny roughness in Robin’s voice when she was tired, the slight catch on certain words when she was angry or scared. It knew what would make Nancy hesitate.

From upstairs, somewhere in the old house, came a low groan of stressed wood settling. Wind scraped a branch against the siding. The lamp in the corner flickered once. Then again.

Nancy tried to steady her breathing. She could hear her own pulse inside her skull.

There had been a plan. They’d had one, hours ago, before everything went to hell in the span of seconds the way it always seemed to in Hawkins.

Keep the group split in pairs.

Do not go anywhere alone.

If anyone started acting wrong, if anyone heard a voice from nowhere, if any lights began to pulse in that awful slow rhythm they’d all learned to dread, get out and regroup.

No heroics.

No improvising.

No one leaves until everyone leaves.

Then Vecna had started in with Natalia.

Even now, even here, Nancy could see her daughter as she had looked when she dropped.

One second Natalia had been standing in Joyce and Hopper's cabin, dark hair pulled back, expression set in that stubbornly brave way that always wrecked Nancy because it was like staring at herself at eleven years old. The next second the color had drained from her face. Her eyes had gone glassy and far away, fixed on something none of them could see. She had whispered, so faint Nancy almost hadn’t heard it.

“Mom?”

Then she collapsed.

Everything after that had detonated.

Joyce had gotten Natalia to the couch. Hopper had started barking orders. Jonathan had tried to find the music, any music, while Steve and Robin and Nancy had moved for the truck because they thought they had maybe twenty minutes, maybe less, before whatever Vecna was doing got worse. They were supposed to get supplies, regroup with the others, come back fast.

Instead the road had closed around them like a trap.

Something had struck from the tree line. Not an animal. Not human. A demogorgon, all speed and teeth and wet sound. There had been screaming, braking, Steve swearing, Robin grabbing for the tire iron, Nancy firing once through the windshield because instinct had outrun thought. They’d made it to the house only because it had been the nearest shelter with walls still standing.

Steve hadn't made it inside.

Nancy still didn't know if he was alive.

The memory flashed so hard it nearly folded her to her knees.

Robin saw it happen and the smile widened.

“You can’t save all of them,” she said.

Nancy aimed center mass. “I said stop talking.”

Robin laughed, and the thing inhabiting her made the laugh too flat, too even, like it had studied the sound but not the feeling beneath it.

“You’d shoot me?”

Nancy didn't answer.

Because yes, if she had to. Because no, she didn't know if she could. Because Robin was her wife and standing there inside her own skin like a hostage behind her own eyes. Because if Nancy lowered the gun, Robin would kill her. She'd already nearly done it. Because there was blood on the floor where Robin had smashed her head into the mantel and Nancy still couldn't remember how she’d gotten away from the second chokehold except that she had, barely, and the room had gone black at the edges.

Robin took another step.

Nancy backed one.

The front room had become a battlefield in miniature. A lamp layed shattered beneath the window. The coffee table was on its side. One curtain had been ripped half down, leaving the glass exposed to the dark outside where the trees crowded close. A kitchen chair had broken under somebody’s weight. Mud tracked through the hall in smeared prints. The air smelled of gun oil, old wood, coppery blood, and that faint rotting sweetness that always came with the Upside Down, as if a grave had been opened somewhere nearby.

“Nancy,” Robin said again, and for one terrible instant it sounded like Robin was truly speaking.

Nancy’s eyes stung.

Robin’s mouth softened. “Please.”

Nancy’s hands shook.

That was enough. Robin lunged.

And Nancy fired.

The shot cracked through the room with deafening force. Plaster burst from the wall just behind Robin’s shoulder. Robin twisted at the last second with inhuman speed and the bullet missed flesh by inches. And then Robin was on her.

The gun slammed sideways. Nancy hit the floor hard enough to bite her tongue. Robin drove into her with all her weight, stronger than she should have been, stronger than anything wearing a human body had a right to be. Nancy smelled sweat and blood and cold air in Robin’s hair. Saw the blackness threading beneath the whites of Robin’s eyes, like veins of ink.

Robin’s hand clamped around Nancy’s wrist.

The gun skidded away across the floorboards.

Nancy drove her knee upward and Robin grunted but didn't let go. The next second Robin had Nancy’s forearm pinned over her head and her other hand fisted in the front of Nancy’s jacket, hauling her half off the floor just to slam her back down.

The impact exploded through Nancy’s spine.

Robin leaned close enough that their foreheads nearly touched.

“You should've ran,” she hissed.

Nancy could see the strain under Robin’s skin now. The thing inside her moving wrong beneath the surface. Not visible exactly, but suggested, like watching a shadow swim under thin ice.

Robin’s fingers tightened at Nancy’s throat.

Air vanished from her lungs.

Nancy clawed at Robin’s wrist. Kicked. Twisted. Robin held her effortlessly, eyes huge and black-rimmed and terrible.

The room narrowed.

Somewhere far away, Nancy thought of Natalia unconscious at Joyce and Hopper’s cabin. Thought of the eleven year-old, slight as a reed, with Nancy’s face and Nancy’s temper and Robin’s quicksilver mouth. Thought of the first time Natalia had reached up sleepily and touched Nancy’s cheek and asked, with total certainty, “Mama, are monsters real or pretend?” and Nancy, who had seen more than any person should ever know existed, had lied and said, “Pretend, baby. Go to sleep.”

She thought of Robin at the kitchen sink two mornings ago, stealing toast and rolling her eyes at Nancy’s lecture about something stupid. Thought of Robin laughing so hard over coffee she’d nearly choked on. Thought of the wedding ring glinting on Robin’s hand, now at Nancy’s throat.

No.

Nancy stopped trying to pry Robin’s fingers loose and instead went for the wound.

Earlier, in the first stage of the fight, Nancy had managed to slash Robin’s side with the broken edge of a ceramic bowl when Robin had driven her into the kitchen. It hadn't gone deep, but it had gone deep enough.

Nancy jammed her thumb hard into the cut now.

Robin screamed.

The sound was Robin’s. Pure Robin. Startled, furious, hurt.

Her grip spasmed open.

Nancy sucked in air like she was drowning and finally surfacing and shoved with both hands. Robin stumbled back a step and Nancy rolled, scrambled, snatched for anything. Her fingers closed around the fireplace poker.

Robin came again before Nancy could fully rise

But still, Nancy swung.

The poker connected with Robin’s shoulder in a brutal metallic thud. Robin reeled sideways into the mantel. Framed photos went over and shattered. One of them, absurdly, was a picture of the old house’s long-dead owners grinning on a fishing trip. Glass sprayed across the floor.

Robin straightened slowly.

Blood ran from a split on her lip now.

“Nancy,” she said, voice layered suddenly, Robin under something vast and cold. “Do you know what she’s dreaming?”

Nancy went still.

The thing inside Robin smiled.

“Your daughter.”

Nancy’s vision tunneled.

"No."

“At the cabin,” it went on pleasantly. “While you're here playing house with a corpse.”

Nancy swung again, but Robin ducked and caught the poker. They struggled over it, faces inches apart, shoes slipping in broken glass.

“You don’t get to say her name,” Nancy spat.

Robin laughed through blood. “I’ve been inside your head. I know every name.”

With a savage twist Robin tore the poker free and hurled it aside. It clanged against the wall. Nancy went for the knife in her boot, but Robin was faster. A fist crashed into Nancy’s ribs. Something gave with a hot white snap that sent pain lancing through her whole side. Nancy made a sound she didn’t recognize as human.

Robin seized her by the back of the neck and marched her three brutal steps before slamming her face-first into the wall.

And the drywall cracked.

Stars burst behind Nancy’s eyes.

Robin pressed her there, one forearm across Nancy’s shoulders, one hand fisting in her hair. Her mouth was by Nancy’s ear now.

“She’s calling for you in there,” Robin whispered. “She knows you won’t get there in time.”

Nancy tried to wrench free and Robin shoved harder. Nancy’s cheek ground against broken plaster. Warm blood ran down from her scalp into her collar.

“Maybe she sees you dead already,” Robin murmured. “Maybe that comforts her.”

Nancy’s whole body went cold.

Then, very clearly, she heard Robin underneath it.

Not aloud. Not with ears. More like memory forced into shape.

"Nance."

Nancy went rigid.

There it was again, thinner this time, buried deep.

"Nance."

Her Robin.

The pressure at Nancy’s back shifted, just for a second. The forearm eased a fraction. Like someone inside a locked room had thrown themselves against the door.

Nancy acted instantly. She stomped backward on Robin’s foot and drove her elbow hard into Robin’s ribs, once, twice, again. Robin snarled and lost control for half a heartbeat. Nancy spun, slammed both hands against Robin’s shoulders, and sent them both crashing sideways through the doorway into the kitchen.

They hit the table and it broke under them with a splintering crack.

For a second neither moved.

Nancy rolled off first, gasping. Every breath sliced her ribs. Her right eye was swelling. One arm had gone half numb. Across from her Robin pushed up on shaking hands, hair hanging in her face.

And then Nancy saw it.

Not with her eyes exactly, but there all the same, Robin was fighting.

Something in Robin’s expression kept stuttering. Not changing fully, not enough to free her, but flickering between that dead, taunting stillness and flashes of terrible effort. Her fingers clawed at the floorboards hard enough to leave crescents. Her jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles stood out. One eye squeezed shut as if against blinding pain.

“Robin,” Nancy said hoarsely.

Robin’s head jerked toward her.

For one second her own voice came through, ragged and distorted. “Don’t—”

Then the blackness surged back.

Robin screamed, not at Nancy this time but at whatever inhabited her, and convulsed so violently she knocked over one of the kitchen chairs without touching it. The overhead light burst from the rapidness of the flickering and glass rained down.

The room plunged into shadow lit only by the weak spill from the front room lamp and the moonless gray beyond the window.

Nancy stared.

The possession was destabilizing.

That had happened before. She'd witnessed it years ago. It was usually only under specific strains. Heat, trauma, emotional interference, enough damage to the body to force the thing controlling it to divert itself. They had learned fragments over the years, half in research and half in blood. The Mind Flayer could dominate, but not perfectly, not always, not if the host fought hard enough and the body’s limits turned against the invader.

Heat.

Nancy’s gaze flicked to the stove.

It was an old gas range. Pilot light long dead. But if the line still worked...

Robin launched herself off the ruined table with a cry that was almost animal-like.

Nancy barely got her arms up before Robin hit her. They crashed into the counter. A drawer flew open and cutlery scattered everywhere.

Robin was faster now but sloppier. The thing inside her was furious, but losing precision.

Good.

Nancy let herself fold under the momentum, grabbed Robin’s jacket, and twisted. They went down together. Robin’s hand closed on Nancy’s throat again. Nancy drove two fingers at Robin’s eyes on reflex and Robin flinched. Nancy grabbed the nearest thing at hand, a heavy cast-iron skillet that had fallen from a hanging hook, and swung it up into Robin’s side.

Robin yelped.

Nancy shoved free and crawled toward the stove on her elbows and knees because standing took too long now. Behind her Robin made a wet choking sound, then a laugh.

“You still think there’s a cure,” she said.

Nancy reached the stove, yanked the nearest knob open, and smelled the hiss of gas instantly.

Robin froze.

There.

Nancy turned slowly, one hand braced on the oven door to hold herself upright. “Get out of her.”

Robin’s head tilted. “Or what?”

Nancy reached into her pocket and found the lighter she kept there because Hawkins had trained her to carry ridiculous things for practical reasons, even though she tried to forget. Her thumb rolled the wheel once. Sparks flashed, but there was no flame yet.

Robin’s expression changed.

“You’ll burn her.”

Nancy’s eyes filled but her hand stayed steady. “I know.”

Robin took one cautious step.

Nancy clicked the lighter again, and this time a thin yellow flame jumped up.

The room changed. Gas hissed softly in the shadows. Robin’s pupils blew wide. The thing inside her knew fire. Knew heat. Feared it in a way that was old.

“Don’t,” Robin said.

And this time it was Robin. Entirely Robin. Cracked open by terror and pain and pleading. “Nancy, please don’t.”

Nancy almost broke.

She saw a dozen years of marriage in one sickening rush. Robin asleep with one arm flung over her waist. Robin teaching Natalia how to ride a bike, running bent over in the street, yelling contradictory instructions. Robin in the passenger seat singing off-key on purpose to annoy her. Robin kneeling in their kitchen with a ring in her shaking hand because neither of them had ever thought they’d get to live long enough for normal milestones and yet there they were, stealing one anyway.

“Nance,” Robin whispered. Tears stood in her eyes now, real ones. “I’m trying.”

Nancy swallowed hard enough it hurt. “Then help me.”

Robin’s whole body trembled. The thing wearing her fought visibly now, jerks passing through her limbs, her fingers straightening and then curling again. Her mouth pulled into a grin that wasn’t hers. Then into a grimace. Then into nothing.

Nancy took one step toward her. Then another.

Gas filled the kitchen. The smell was overwhelming. Dangerous.

Robin backed into the sink as if retreating from the flame in Nancy’s hand. Or from Nancy herself. Her breathing came fast and ragged.

“Natalia,” Nancy said.

Robin’s face twisted.

“Think about her,” Nancy said. “Think about our daughter.”

Robin squeezed her eyes shut.

Nancy pressed on, voice shaking now, desperate and relentless. “Think about the first day of school when she wouldn’t let go of your coat. Think about her in those yellow rain boots. Think about her asking why the moon follows the car. Think about the time she hid that frog in your purse and you screamed so loud my mom came outside to make sure nobody was dying. Think about her last birthday cake, the terrible one you made that I said tasted fine when it tasted like drywall. Think about Natalia, Robin. Think about me.”

Robin made a sound like something being torn in half.

The blackness in her eyes rippled.

Nancy came close enough to feel the heat of Robin’s body, the cold sweat on her skin, the trembling she was trying to control.

“That’s it,” Nancy whispered, flame between them. “Come back to me. Come back.”

Robin’s eyes snapped open.

For one breathtaking second, they were wholly Robin’s. Blue, dazed, terrified, alive.

Then the thing lashed out in panic.

Robin’s hand shot forward and seized Nancy’s wrist. The flame wavered. They both gasped. Nancy tried to wrench away but Robin, the thing inside Robin, slammed her arm into the wall once, twice. The lighter flew from her fingers and hit the floor, skidding under the broken table.

Gas still hissed, but there was still no flame.

And Robin shoved Nancy backward.

Nancy crashed into the refrigerator, the impact slamming a cry out of her. Robin came in hard, fist driving into Nancy’s damaged ribs. White agony flared. Nancy nearly blacked out standing and Robin's hands caught her shoulders and drove her down to her knees.

“You had one chance,” the thing snarled through Robin’s teeth.

Nancy blinked through tears.

Then she saw the extension cord.

It trailed from the counter, where an old radio had been knocked into the sink. Water ran in a thin steady stream from the bent faucet. The cord’s plastic casing had split when everything went over. Tiny bright threads glimmered through the tear.

An electrical spark.

Gas.

A terrible idea.

But it was the only kind Hawkins ever gave any of them.

Robin followed Nancy’s gaze and understood at the same time.

For the first time, the thing looked afraid.

Nancy moved.

Robin tackled her before she could reach the cord and they went down in the spreading water. Nancy’s hand slapped across the tile, inches from the radio. Robin’s nails raked her arm bloody trying to drag her back. Nancy twisted, got a palm on the radio casing, and shoved it deeper into the sink basin with all the strength she had left.

The exposed wire kissed metal.

And there was a spark.

Then chaos.

The gas ignited in a violent rush that punched the air from the room. Fire rolled across the ceiling in a blue-orange sheet. Heat slammed into them. Robin screamed, a sound layered with something vast and furious and inhuman. Nancy threw an arm over her face as shattered glass burst inward from a window.

The blast wasn't large enough to level the house, but it was enough.

Enough to flood the kitchen with searing heat.

Enough to knock both of them apart.

Enough to force the Mind Flayer to choose between holding Robin and escaping fire.

Robin convulsed on the floor.

Nancy dragged herself backward through broken glass and burning debris, coughing hard enough to retch. Her hair singed at the ends. The curtains had caught, flames crawled up them in greedy bright lines. Smoke thickened fast.

Robin arched so violently her heels almost drummed the tile.

Then black smoke poured out of her mouth.

Not smoke exactly. It was like a writhing tendril of dark matter that tore free from Robin in a furious stream and slammed against the ceiling like a trapped thing seeking cracks. It hissed with a sound like distant screaming. Nancy had seen it before, once, years ago, only never on this scale.

Then Robin collapsed bonelessly.

The shadow whipped toward the broken window and vanished into the night.

Silence hit in its wake like a dropped curtain.

For a heartbeat Nancy couldn't move.

Then the room roared back. Flames snapping, wood popping, smoke alarms shrieking somewhere deeper in the house. Nancy crawled to Robin on shaking hands and knees.

“Robin.”

She got no response.

Nancy grabbed Robin’s face with both hands. Soot blackened her fingers instantly. Robin’s skin was hot, too hot. There was a burn along one side of her neck where the blast had kissed her. Blood ran from her hairline. Her lips were bluish.

“Robin.”

Nancy pressed trembling fingers to Robin’s throat.

There was a pulse. Weak, but there.

Nancy let out a broken sob that barely made sound.

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey, come on. Robin, open your eyes.”

Robin didn't move.

The fire was catching faster now. The cabinets above the stove had gone up. Smoke pressed low and ugly into the room. Nancy coughed until her chest seized. Every instinct screamed that they had seconds, not minutes.

She had to move.

Nancy rose once and nearly dropped with the pain in her side. But she still managed to hook both hands under Robin’s arms and drag.

Robin was taller than Nancy was by enough to matter when dead weight entered the equation. Nancy’s boots slid on wet tile and blood and broken glass. Her damaged ribs shrieked. Her shoulder threatened to tear free at the socket. But she dragged anyway, inch by inch, Robin’s heels bumping over the threshold from kitchen to hall.

Halfway down the hall Robin coughed violently and twisted, waking all at once and in agony.

“Nance?"

Nancy almost collapsed from relief.

Robin tried to push up and failed. Her eyes were unfocused. “Wha... what happened?”

“Fire happened,” Nancy coughed. “I need you to move.”

Robin blinked at her, then at the burning kitchen behind them, then at Nancy’s face again. Understanding came in jagged pieces. Horror followed close behind.

“Oh God,” Robin whispered. “Did I... did I hurt you?"

Nancy laughed once, helplessly, because of course that was the first thing Robin asked. “Yeah."

Robin looked stricken.

“But you’re fixing it by helping me not die in a house fire,” Nancy said. “Can you stand?”

Robin tried. Her whole body shook with the effort. One leg nearly buckled. Nancy hauled her up by the elbow and instantly regretted it when pain tore through her ribs so hard she saw sparks. Robin saw it too.

Nancy knew the exact second Robin properly focused on her injuries.

Robin went white under all the soot.

“Nance."

“It’s fine.”

“It is absolutely not fine.”

“Robin—”

Robin slid an arm around her waist before Nancy could protest, careful even through her own shaking. “Lean on me.”

“You were unconscious ten seconds ago.”

“And now I’m not," Robin said. "Lean."

The command in Robin’s voice left no room, so Nancy leaned.

Together they staggered toward the front door as smoke filled the hallway behind them. Robin limped badly. Whatever the possession had done to her muscles was taking its toll now that adrenaline alone couldn't hide it. Nancy’s vision blurred in and out. The gun still laid somewhere in the front room, impossible to retrieve safely. The entire house groaned around them.

When they reached the front room, Robin stopped dead.

“Nancy,"

On the floor by the overturned coffee table lay the wedding photo Nancy had knocked off the mantel during the fight. The glass had shattered, but the picture itself remained mostly intact: Nancy in white, Robin in a suit because she had flatly refused lace on principle, both of them laughing at something outside the frame. So young-looking it had embarrassed them both at the time. The ring on Robin’s hand had been sliding crooked because her fingers were too cold. Natalia hadn't existed yet except as a hope too fragile to say aloud.

Nancy followed Robin’s gaze and then looked at Robin.

“Leave it.”

Robin swallowed

“Robin,"

Robin tore her eyes away. “Right.”

They made it to the porch just as the front room windows burst behind them in a shower of sparks. Cold night air hit Nancy’s face like a slap. She nearly went to her knees from the shock of it after the furnace heat inside. Robin half-carried, half-dragged her down the porch steps and away from the house.

The yard was dead grass, mud, and leaf rot. Beyond the tree line the road waited in darkness. No headlights. No help. Just the distant faint glow of Hawkins somewhere miles off and the ugly orange pulse of fire behind them.

Nancy managed three more steps before her legs quit.

Robin got her down as gently as she could.

“Nancy! Nancy, stay with me.”

Nancy blinked up at her. Robin’s face hovered above her, streaked with soot, lip split, hair singed, eyes wild.

She was alive.

Her Robin was alive.

That fact alone felt too enormous to hold.

“You’re bleeding a lot,” Robin said, voice shaking now. “Okay. Okay. No, don’t close your eyes. Don’t do that.”

“I’m thinking,” Nancy murmured.

“You can think at the hospital.”

Robin patted frantically at her own pockets, then Nancy’s, looking for keys, for anything useful, for an answer. Her hands were trembling so hard she almost dropped the truck keys when she found them in Nancy’s jacket.

“The truck,” Robin said. “Okay. We can get to the truck.”

Nancy tried to sit up. The world tilted and nearly threw her off. Robin caught her.

“Easy.”

“Steve,” Nancy croaked.

Robin’s face crumpled for one awful second. “I know.”

“We have to go back—”

“We are not going back into the woods blind and half-dead.”

“Natalia.”

At that, Robin went utterly still.

Everything in her sharpened around that name.

Their eleven year-old was still unconscious at Joyce and Hopper’s cabin with Vecna pressing at the walls of her mind. The whole reason they'd been out here in the first place.

Robin looked from the burning house to Nancy’s barely coherent face to the dark road.

But she made the hard decision.

“We get you to the hospital first,” she said, but there was no conviction in it.

Nancy gave her a stare that would have been murderous if she’d had more strength. “No.”

“Nancy, your ribs are—”

“No.”

“You might have internal bleeding.”

“And Natalia might be dying.”

Robin shut her eyes. Her whole face tightened with pain far deeper than the burns or bruises. Because Nancy was right. Because they both knew exactly what time meant when Vecna had hold of somebody. Because there was no such thing as taking care of one crisis at a time in Hawkins. They only ever chose which person they could bear to fail first.

But Robin also knew the other truth.

"I can't help her," Robin said. "Not if you die."

Nancy gave in then. Maybe because her body was too weak to do anything else, or maybe because she knew, stubbornly, Robin was right. She couldn't help Natalia. Not like this.

Robin got Nancy to her feet with monumental effort. Nancy managed one arm over Robin’s shoulders. Robin’s own side was soaked through now where the earlier cut had reopened, and Nancy realized dimly that Robin was bleeding much more than she had let on.

But Robin wasn't even concerned about that.