Page 40 of Saving Her Dragon

Garrett rolled his eyes. "I'm not concussed, Doctor. My memory is⁠—"

"Wonderful. Repeat the three words."

"Apple. Candle. River," Garrett grunted.

Moving behind him, her fingers pressed firmly into the base of his skull. He knew she was tracking the neurological pathways where his spine met his brain, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.

"Good,” Darcy remarked. “Now, give me your language patterns. Count backward from one hundred by sevens."

"Ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-nine..." Garrett muttered, his knuckles turning white against his knees.

Ten minutes later, while she was checking the coordination in his wrists, she popped the question without looking up. "What were the words?"

"Apple, candle, river," Garrett snapped, his patience wearing dangerously thin. "Can we stop playing games now?"

"No," Darcy said smoothly, pulling a tablet from her bag.

She opened the encrypted files containing the medical records from Garrett's initial rescue. He had seen them enough to immediately know what they were when they popped onto the screen. For five long minutes, the kitchen was entirely silent except for the soft swipe of Darcy’s finger across the screen. She compared the raw data from his rescue to the physical baseline sitting right in front of her.

"Your previous physicians were idiots," Darcy murmured, her eyes scanning the charts. "Your neurological function hasn't just stabilized, Garrett. It has improved. Significantly. Your memory access is expanding, your reaction times are superior to a standard active-duty Dragon Guardsman, and your cognitive processing is running at peak capacity. Your Man-Dragon King Bond is practically flawless."

She set the tablet down, leaning her hips against the counter. "Everything in your chart says you are healing."

Garrett let out a cold, humorless breath. "Then explain 3:42 AM. Explain why my body writes down timestamps or marches into a muddy creek bed while my mind is completely blacked out."

Darcy didn't offer a quick, easy answer. And to Garrett, that was infinitely scarier than if she had found structural brain damage.

"Trauma doesn't require visible neurological deterioration, Garrett," Darcy said, her tone turning serious as she addressed the elephant in the room. "Dissociation remains a very real possibility. A mind that has survived what yours has can build massive, invisible walls, vaults if you prefer, to isolate certain experiences."

"But?" Garrett pushed, sensing the shift in her posture.

"But if this were a standard trauma response or structural dissociation, I would expect to see inconsistency elsewhere," Darcy reasoned, her sharp eyes tracking his face. "You aren't losing your identity during the day. You aren't confused. You aren't showing a single drop of cognitive deterioration. In fact, you're getting sharper. The episodes are oddly specific. Deep sleep. Exactly 3:42 AM. Both you and Han experience the same missing interval. I'm not going to simply label this PTSD and walk away. There's a variable we're missing.”

Before he could speak, she went on. "I need to observe you sleeping," Darcy concluded matter-of-factly. "I'm going to set up specialized monitoring equipment in the bedroom and observe you tomorrow night."

Garrett let out a heavy, dramatic groan, rubbing his temples. "Great. Wonderful. Everyone wants to watch me sleep."

Grey poked his head through the screen door, a massive smirk on his face. "That's because you're adorable, little brother."

"I'm going to kill you," Garrett growled, glaring at the doorway.

Without even looking up from her screen, Darcy tapped her stylus against the glass. "Homicidal ideation. Noted."

“And that’s what having your older brother around gets you…”

“I have them too,” Darcy deadpanned. “So, I know the BS goes both ways.”

Before he could respond, she pulled out her phone and ordered everything they would need for the following night…

"Before I set up the overnight gear, I want to check the baseline resonance of your Bond with your Dragon King," Darcy said, stepping back into Garrett's space. She pulled a small, sleek metallic instrument from her bag, a specialized diagnostic sensor designed to measure localized Magical frequencies in Other physiology. She had explained how it worked to him earlier, but not how cold it would be.

“That thing is freezing,” he complained.

“Yeah, we’ll toughen up, Buttercup,” Darcy countered. “And let Han move closer to the surface." Her voice dropped into a firm, commanding rhythm. "Don't force him out. Just let his consciousness slide forward so I can read the internal signature."

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Garrett closed his eyes. Going inward, he signaled for the Dragon King to come forward. Inside their combined soul, Han rumbled in agreement, his massive, fiery presence shifting forward, pressing right against the barrier of Garrett’s conscious mind.

Darcy lifted the metallic sensor. She pressed the cold instrument directly against the center of Garrett’s chest, right over his heart.