Chapter Text
Chapter 1
There was…beeping. God her body was screaming at her. A muffled, gurgle of a scream came out as she tried to move, an eye opened but slammed shut against the bright white of the room. Hospital. She was in a hospital.
‘Don’t move, don’t try to talk.’ She knew that voice. ‘I’ll get a nurse.’
She tried to work out what hurt, but it was everything. Her whole body. One eye was definitely covered. The other, the bright was too much. Didn’t try to open it again. She could hear voices, but they were nothing but noise as her ears went funny. She was pretty sure she was passing out.
*
She was more lucid when she next woke. She managed to hang on long enough to hear spleen, snapped fibula, broken elbow, broken pelvis. Did it really matter what else? She drifted in and out, the doctor had left at some point, and the next time she came to, her parents were by her bed. She heard that voice again, but couldn’t see her, and her parents told her they’d be back again tomorrow as she felt herself drifting off.
The room was darker when she next woke, and her one eye was able to adjust and she didn’t have to fight so hard. The hospital was quieter, probably night time. As she managed to loll her head towards the window, it was then, that she saw her. She hadn’t imagined it. What on earth was she doing here? How was she here? Her body was screaming in agony as she took in the woman, sitting formally upright but seemingly sound asleep. Those thick black curls much shorter than she remembered. Thinner too.
Still beautiful.
Why was she here?
And then a whisper, but her head protested at moving again, and she strained to see the voice. And then a nurse was in view.
And then again. ‘Ms Whistler, just taking your vitals.’
She tried to turn her head, really. But it was too hard. Eventually she drifted off to sleep, her mind a confusion of questions as she tried to make sense of why the woman whom she hadn’t seen in probably 4 years, was uncomfortably asleep in a chair next to her hospital bed.
*
Lucy never seemed to be around when her parents visited, nor when nurses would change her catheter, bath her down, or check on the stab wounds. She was however, there for every scan, X-Ray, and after both surgeries. Slept in that god-awful chair next to her bed every night.
It had been two weeks, and they’d barely spoken. The day the doctor took the bandage off her eye Lucy had said hi. Kate’s voice still full of gravel, her throat a long way from recovery, had been able to barely husk a ‘hello’. Neither of them smiled.
So now, as her parents sat with her in the courtyard, she was curious as Lucy came towards them, two coffees in hand. She watched as she handed one to her father. They were familiar. Comfortable with each other. In another life she had only dreamed of this scenario. Now? How dare Lucy.
‘Kate, honey?’ her mother interrupted her runaway thoughts. Why was she nervous with Lucy here? She shifted her gaze back to her mum. ‘We’re heading home tomorrow sweety.’ She didn’t miss the glance cast in Lucy’s direction.
It had been, just understood, really, when the doctor had spoken at length yesterday about a possible discharge. It wasn’t spoken about. Not discussed, questioned…everyone just, knew. Kate could go home in a couple of days, and Lucy would be going with her. And now, hearing her mother talk of going home because she was healing well, albeit with plenty of rehab and a long way to go, the agony of her body paled in comparison to the feelings she had to confront, of realising that even she knew Lucy was going to be the one to look after her.
They stayed out in that courtyard for a good hour more. Lucy had retreated, as usual, not long after handing over the coffee and after her mother had told her. Lucy didn’t stick around when her family visited, and perhaps today was more important than usual that she didn’t. It was weird, her being here after all these years. Her and her parents, mostly her parents, kept chatting as they made their way back to Kate’s room. They spoke of coming to visit probably after she’d settled at home for a month or two, or maybe once she was coping with rehab, if that’s what Kate preferred. She was to let them know. And then of all of a sudden, she was just kind of dumped on Lucy. Seemingly engrossed in a book back in the room, she didn’t look the least surprised as they came back in to disturb her silence. Watching her mum hug Lucy farewell, Kate was pretty sure she dissociated. But then her parents were gone, and Lucy was repositioning the wheelchair.
Kate shouldn’t have been surprised. Not really. That Lucy managed to get her into the bed without too much effort. With barely a word between them, a nod to confirm Kate was okay in that position, and then Lucy was back to her chair and reading that goddamned book.