What Happened?

Emma~

That familiar beeping echoes through my mind and if this is death, it’s far worse than I thought. Every chime of it feels like a blow to the head and I want nothing more than for it to just stop.

I can feel pain here too, which is ridiculous. Isn’t it meant to fade after death, or am I in hell right now?

What have I done to land myself here? I ask while I feel around to try and understand the source better, but my hands are too heavy. In fact, every part of me is heavy and I wonder if the air is thicker in the afterlife. It would explain why it’s so hard to breathe… not that I expected to need to.

I don’t get this at all. It’s too confusing and I would prefer blank nothingness over this.

I hope Orion killed that man for what he did to me. Maybe it’s thoughts like that that have landed me here, but oh well, it’s worth it if he got what was coming to him. He clearly enjoyed himself while hurting me and there’s bound to be a worse place than here for him to end up in, right?

“Emma?” A voice calls to me through the darkness and I turn towards it. “Emma, can you hear me?”

I know that voice, that damned honey-like voice, and I should have known better than to have thought he’d let me get away.

Orion is here, which means that I’m here. I’m in the hospital. It takes me a second to find the facial muscles needed to open my eyes and I am met thankfully with more darkness and a pair of glowing blue ones.

I laugh, but it hurts my side to do so. “We have to stop meeting like this,” I say, and my voice sounds horrible.

“You have to stop nearly dying first,” he replies, and I can tell just from his voice how worried he is.

“Teach me better and maybe you won’t have to save me next time.” I smile up at him to let him know that there’s no resentment here.

From the relief on his face, it’s clearly my reaction he was worried about more than anything, and I’m grateful to see the stress lines reduce somewhat. I don’t know how he did it, but I’m here, I’ve survived, and I have him by my side.

“How long was I out this time?” I wonder because it doesn’t hurt as much as I expected. I got stabbed, didn’t I?

Oh, to think I’ve lost another week is almost more than I can bear. Losing periods of my life is a scary thought and there’s no way I can get that time back. Now I really hope he killed that man.

“Now’s not the time to talk about that…” The stress lines are back and I try to sit up more to get a better view of his face.

The fact that he won’t just answer me scares me more, and the monitor next to me lights up like a Christmas tree as it reflects the stress growing inside of me. How long?

“You need to answer me.” I refuse to look away from his eyes, even though he drops his gaze to rub the back of his neck.

“You were out for a month.” He holds his breath after that revelation, and I cover my mouth as if to protect myself from the shock.

A month?

How could I have been asleep so long and not sense it? My hair should be knotted to hell, but it feels as smooth as the day before the attack. I mean, sure, it would explain the heaviness if I’ve not moved in so long, but a month is such a long time. I can’t even process it.

“How do you feel?” He asks, shifting his weight on his feet, and I take a second to calm my raging thoughts that whizz through my mind.

There’s pain still, but not a lot of it, so I’d rather not bring it up while he’s already looking so guilty for what wasn’t his fault. Already since waking, my body has started to loosen up a bit, and I bet I could get out of this bed if I wanted to. But should I? Am I out of the woods?

“Fine, I feel fine,” I sigh. “What did the doctors say?” I hold my breath for the answer.

But rather than avoid the question again, he actually smiles slightly, closing his eyes to let himself savor my answer first before giving his own. “They said it all depends on how you’ll feel. They’ve treated the wounds, packed you with antibiotics, and transfused all of the poison out of your system… the only thing they were really worried about is your reaction to, you know, the trauma.”

I nod my head, trying to picture all that they’ve done to get me through this. I mean, I’ve never so much as broken a bone, so it’s a lot to wrap my head around.

“I don’t think I’ve processed that part yet,” I reply in all honesty. “What I do know is that I could do with another bath though.”

He laughs and helps me to sit up. My eyes are adjusting to the darkness better and I like how he remembered my distaste for the lights from last time. It’s weird that there was a last time, isn’t it?

“Let’s get you home then.” He holds out his hand and I take it.

I wobble slightly when I get to my feet, but he keeps me right as I recall how to use my limbs. The fact that I can do as much after what happened has me wondering how much of the attack last night is exaggerated by my imagination.

“Margaret is running you a bath… your room is a bit, well, it looks like a bomb site, Emma. Are you still opposed to sharing? I can sleep in the office if needs be, but…” His voice trails off, but I already know what he’s going to say because I feel the same.

He doesn’t want to leave me unattended after all that’s just happened, and to be honest, the idea of being alone in the room next to it all makes my stomach flip.

“We can share.”

***

He has to lift me into the bath with nothing but my underwear on, and if it wasn’t from the heat, my skin would still be a beetroot red.

“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” he reassures me before closing the door, and is it bad that I almost asked him not to leave? That’s pretty pathetic, right?

I take my time to scrub away mine and what I assume to be the blood of that man. On the way over here, Orion had told me how Donovan shot him through the window and that’s why the glass shattered everywhere.

When I feel up to it, I’m making that man a batch of cookies, lots of them. It’s silly to think that’s how I say thank you, but I’ve got nothing else. I’m here and I’m okay, and I want to thank everyone involved for it.

When my skin starts to sting from the friction, I know that I’ve scrubbed enough, and only then do I turn to my hair. It’s in good condition for the amount of time I’ve been out, which means someone must have brushed it for me. I laugh to myself as I picture it being Orion, but he’ll have hired people for that, I’m sure. He doesn’t strike me as the type that knows how to deal with knots.

Looking down at my white underwear once done, I unhappily find that it’s gone transparent from the water. There’s not a chance I’m calling him back in here to get a look at this, so I use one of the shelves to drag myself out of the soapy confines of the water.

He must have heard me shuffling about because he knocks on the door not long after.

“I’ve got some clothes for you if you want to change into something warmer?” He offers, and I wrap the towel firmly around myself before opening up, refusing to look at the scar on my ribs as I’m certainly not ready to see that yet.

“Thanks,” I reach out to find the makeshift outfit from my first morning here. All of these are his clothes, bar the fresh set of panties.

I smile to myself while putting them on and ask why this outfit when I enter back into the bedroom again. Already my energy is fading, and I want nothing more than to go back to sleep, which is odd when considering how much I’ve had.

“Honestly?” He asks, and I raise my eyebrows in question, as when would I want him to lie to me? “It makes me feel better to have you wearing my clothes after what’s happened,” he explains, and I nod slightly in understanding.

It’s strange, but it has the same effect on me too, so he’ll have no complaints from my side on that matter… It’s funny how far we’ve come from that first night.

I walk over to the bed, feeling my eyelids drooping further the more I go, and let my head flop back onto the pillow. The sinking of the mattress tells me that Orion has joined me, and he hesitates for a second before pulling me against his chest.

“I’m really glad that you’re okay,” is what he says to me moments before I drift off back to sleep.