Haven: Collapse 5: While You Were Sleeping

[amichan]

 “You want to try that again?” the nurse, Elisa, is asking, bottle of water near at hand. She has a damp cloth which she's moving from one part of my face to another, as the orderly who I now know as Marcus, is mopping up the vomit which didn't make it into the hastily grabbed bucket given I wasn't intending...but the water went in and then everything came out. Too dizzy, too hot. It hasn't calmed down yet.

“No,” I tell her, slowly, not moving my head from where I'm staring at the corner of the table and her neon pink crocs. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed because we were just back from the bathroom, because, of course.

“What's going on?” I hear Julia dumping bags into a chair and rushing over. She climbs up on the bed in one fell swoop and puts her arms around me, “What happened?”

“Nothing bad,” Elisa says, “Breakfast decided to reappear is all. It happens.”

She runs a hand through my hair, “I'm sorry I wasn't here,” she says, voice full of self-annoyance and kisses me on the cheek.

“It's okay,” I murmur, “What would you have done?”

“Hold your hair, goof.”

“That does feel good,” I admit as she scratches my scalp.

“Alright, you two,” Elisa says, “Let's get him properly in the bed.”

Julia climbs back down and Marcus lifts my legs up onto the bed instructing me not to help with the movement in any way. Then the fencing is put back up on either side of me.

“Julia,” I tell her, reaching for her arm, “I was telling Marcus that we'd give him some compensation at The Gull, whatever you think is fair, for him getting Wade out of here.”

“I ran into him downstairs,” she says.

I feel myself tensing and Marcus moves closer, concerned.

“It's okay,” she puts a hand over mine, “I gave him what for, and there was someone nearby who is going to spread the word he's not allowed in here.”

“The staff know too,” Marcus puts in.

“I can't believe he came up here,” Julia mutters.

“I said I would talk to him—when he showed up. I didn't invite him,” I tell her, “I thought—but this was a bad day to try to reason with him.”

She kisses my temple, and then looks around. Elisa hands her another cool rag, and she applies it to my head, “Any day is a bad day to try and reason with him,” she says, “He's been consistently unreasonable.”

“He had some interesting versions of things that have happened,” I tell her.

“Gotta love those family members who just don't get it.” Elisa remarks.

“Well, he didn't grow up in Haven,” Julia says, “So that doesn't help.”

“Oh, boy,” she says, musing on this for a while, “and a Crocker too...”

“That's why he needs to get out of town,” I say, “before he gets into some kind of fight where something happens. You think this shit would factor as a betrayal?” I lean back on the bed again, looking at Julia, “in his warped little brain? Never mind what he was trying to do to me...and the things he was implying about you.” I brush her face.

“What did he say to you about me?” she asks, “He called me a gold digger downstairs. I called him an outsider parasite.”

I laugh, every beat sending pain through my head, “There's my girl.”

“Alright, well, rest up,” Elisa says, “You know where we are—you should try and eat,” she tells me, “but give it a little while. Maybe we should switch to soup and bread or...just crackers.”

Julia nods, “We know where you are.”

“Until six,” Elisa says, “Then it's Cheri again, but that's a while yet.”

“$100 tab,” Julia says to Marcus.

“Damn, really? That's not--”

“I really don't like his brother. Especially given his ass had to be hanging around waiting for me to leave to come in here and try to pull something...so, thank you.”

“No problem,” Marcus says, “Happy to help. Our family tells stories of how generations ago they used to blight fields and before the Crockers' helped they were so worried it might spread to animals and people. So, anything you need. The tab is great, but really, honestly, I would have done it, anyway, but that did make the look on his face all the better.”

“You're keeping the tab, right?” I press with as threatening a look as I can muster.

“Well, yeah...”

“Good man.”

He tips the “hat” again and leaves.

 

$$$$

 

I shift on the bed and Julia lowers the closest fence so that she can climb up next to me.

“I'm so sorry,” she says, as she snuggles against my chest, “I should have connected the dots, especially after the whole “not stomach flu” revelation—should have made sure you got anti-nausea stuff.”

“It's okay.”

It feels like she's still going to be chewing on it, “At least you're not going to be running the risk of dehydration though, right?” she continues.

“This is true,” I kiss the top of her head.

“How is your stomach?”

“It's fine.”

“You're not just saying that?”

“No. It's fine. It is. Heroin causes other issues with I think is what contributed to the...stomach fluiness of that situation...”

She runs her hand over my chest, “Fingers crossed,” she says, kissing my chest.

“If something changes stomach-wise, believe me, I will say.”

We sit and sort of watch television for a while. It's so comfortable with my arm wrapped around her and her head rested on my chest and even though I can't see any clocks I know I must have dozed off because there wouldn't be penguins in what I could have sworn was a documentary about the Sahara desert, and then I'm waking up again and the TV is silent and Julia's not nestled against me but there's a plush brown and tan bear in the crook of my arm instead.

Movement to the left of me and I make out Julia though the scene doesn't quite make sense. She's got a group of what must be helium filled balloons tied together with string that are wrapped around her left wrist and is moving some cards around on the window sill.

“What's going on?” I ask her.

“You had some visitors, but they didn't want to wake you,” she answers, turning around and coming over to give me a kiss. Her eyes are red and a little puffy though.

“What's wrong?”

“No, it's fine, really,” she says, sitting down next to me, but she's definitely been crying, “I'll be fine,” she amends, “Just...” she reaches over to the bear that I had picked up to look at, “the visitors... Madeline's family,” she explains, “one of her nephews,” her voice catches as she toys with the bear's ears, “he wanted you to have his bear because it helps him feel better when he's sick,” she's crying again before she finishes the explanation, and I lean forward to hug her, feeling the weight of the emotion myself and my own eyes heating up. Madeline's family. Madeline. The woman I killed. Her family are bringing get well wishes to my hospital room. The scene makes even less sense now.

“Madeline's family?”

“Yes,” she says, softly, “They feel bad that you're going through so much because of what you did for Madeline—for them.”

I lean back on the pillows again and shake my head.

“Don't,” she says, poking me in the shoulder, “They know you don't like it, and they don't think you're a monster. It was a shitty situation, but you helped her—and them—at the cost of this,” she waves a hand at the room, pausing to gesture at the drip, “and they just...wanted to acknowledge that you're suffering, and that they wish you weren't.”

I can't say anything. She leans over and hugs me, squashing the bear between us, “It's okay,” she says, into my ear, “You're going to be okay, and you...” she pulls back a little from the hug so that we're looking into each others eyes, “It's better that they're worried for you than afraid of you, surely?”

“There's that,” I say, slowly. Trying not to flashback to when I was a kid and the only way anything ever got done was if I did it and I was the only person who ever...

She moves forward on the bed a little and brushes a lock of hair that's fallen forward out of the hair tie back behind my ear, “Do you need anything? Are you hungry?”

“No. No,” I shake my head, which flops more hair loose.

She gets up and goes back to the chair where she dumped the bags when she walked in, unhooking the balloons still on her wrist as she does and tying them to the back of the chair before going through the bags in search of something. That something turns out to be my hair brush. She bats my shoulder with the flat of it until I turn slightly.

“Here we go,” she says, “This should feel good,” and she begins to run the brush through my hair and she's right I can feel myself being lulled by the smooth rhythm; even when there are tangles she's gentle and doesn't affect my overall relaxed mood. I find myself leaning back into her touch which isn't helping what she's trying to do. She carefully pushes me forward with a teasing comment about me being counter-productive.

“You know if there's anything you want to ask me about, you can,” I tell her, “because I don't know where to start with things.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“What you were talking about yesterday—keeping things secret.”

“I still don't understand...” she pauses in the brushing.

“You said I shouldn't keep things from you, and I don't know—because there are quite a few things that I haven't gotten in to.”

“Oh, God,” she says, “Oh, no...I didn't...” she shifts around on the bed so that we're facing each other again and drops the brush and takes my face in her hands, “No, that's not...I was meaning self-destructive things. I should have realized you weren't in the most logical of head spaces,” she kisses me, “Please don't be dissecting everything in your head...” she nuzzles my nose with her own, and then rests our foreheads together, “I didn't mean that, but babe, seriously, I have no judgment on things you've done in the past, okay? I just...things that can harm you, that are self-inflicted—that's concern, right?”

I nod.

She kisses me again, “Okay, good. Now lay back. Why don't you get some rest?”

I nestle down against her chest without complaint because I am exhausted and tiny girlfriend is nothing if not logical. Maybe tonight I can just sleep and there won't be fever or dreams. There will just be rest and then we can get out of here.