Another prompt, this time from screengeniuz. It's another one of my favorites and I'm still working on the additional parts so input is appreciated.
Olivia is terribly injured and put in a coma after an attempt on her life.
The hospital room was silent except for the incessant beeping of the machine monitoring her heart rate. The machine that was once a beacon of hope that Olivia would live another day and she was fighting for her life was now just a painful reminder that she hadn't woken up. That she wasn't fighting.
"Are we going to be here long?"
A voice sounds from behind Fitz. He'd almost forgotten that he wasn't alone. It was easy to make everything disappear when he was here with her. He shakes his head, staring ahead at Olivia's frail body. She was already extremely thin when she was full of life but now that she wasn't, it seemed that her body was wasting away before his eyes.
"No…not too long." Fitz shakes his head, trying to find the woman that he fell in love with within the feeble body in front of him. "I just had a bad day and needed to see her."
"Do you think that Momma knows when we're here? Do you think it makes her feel better, too?"
Fitz smiles at that question as his daughter climbs into the hospital bed and tucks herself into Olivia's side, wrapping her arms around her body as if she were really holding her.
"I like to think so." He replies softly, watching as his little girl laid her head on her mother's chest to listen to her heart beat.
It made his heartache to know that these were the moments that she would remember with her mother instead of the one's that were filled with laughter and joy. All of her memories would be of sterile hospital rooms and silence.
"Can you tell her a story?" Her voice sounds from where her face is tucked into Olivia's chest. "I like it when you read me stories, Daddy. It makes me feel better."
He couldn't and wouldn't deny her. Not when she looked at him with eyes that were the perfect replica of her mother's. It was hard at first, looking at his daughter only to see his wife staring back at him but now it was like a blessing. Her looks were the greatest tie that she would ever have to her.
"I don't really know any stories to tell her. Not any fun ones anyway."
"What about when I first talked? Lotsa people like stories about babies. Do you remember, Daddy?"
He smiles at her and takes a seat next to the bed, his hands immediately finding Olivia's to caress it as he spoke.
"Of course I remember. Your mom freaked out for a week because she was convinced that you were ready to talk and she didn't want to miss it. She just kept saying it over and over."
"'Say Momma'. Fitz, don't laugh. I know she's going to say something. It's on the tip of her tongue. You know when she opens her mouth and she moves her head? She's ready to talk and she just can't get it out."
"Or maybe, just maybe, she's being a baby. You know, little humans that don't yet have control over all of their muscle functions."
He can practically hear her roll her eyes at him through the phone.
"Fine. Don't take this seriously but you're going to miss it. Right, Lol." Her voice morphs into baby gibberish as she redirects her attention. "Daddy's gonna be jealous when you say 'Momma' first because I'm your favorite parent. Right? Say 'Momma'. 'Momma'."
Fitz shakes his head at her, listening to the baby murmur through the phone. Olivia had been at it for a week, completely convinced that their daughter was going to start talking soon.
"Well, I'm going to go. I should be home in the next hour. Don't bore, Lola too much with your crazy talk."
She scoffs at him, taking the phone off of the speaker function.
"You know, she gets this from you. Taking her time to do things when she wants to do them."
"I think the name of the trait that you're looking for is called stubbornness and that's definitely a Pope trait if I've ever heard one."
"Lies, fairytales, and fallacies, Fitzgerald Grant."
He laughs at her cheekiness.
"Whatever you say, Livvie. I love you both."
It's almost like he can feel her smile through the phone and then she's gone urging him to make it home in exactly an hour.
Olivia's waiting for him at the door, absentmindedly twisting her curls through her fingers with one hand and holding the baby monitor tightly with the other.
"If you hold that thing any tighter you're going to break it."
She shakes her head at him, jumping a bit at his unexpected appearance.
"Lola should be waking up soon and I want to hear her call for me."
"You mean cry."
Olivia throws him a pointed look, irritated at the fact that he hadn't bought into her premonition but before she can say anything, small whimpers make their way through the receiver before growing into a full outcry.
"I pumped after I put her down, can you get her a bottle from the fridge."
And then she turns, making her way up the stairs to attend to the baby leaving him with the receiver. Fitz makes his way to the kitchen, transferring the milk from the small containers that she stored them in and into a bottle before heating it up. He laughs and shakes his head at her voice coming through the speaker, softly encouraging their daughter to speak. 'Say 'Momma'. He hears her say repeatedly, slowing down so that Lola can pick up the syllables coming from her mouth. At this point it was no use trying to convince Olivia that she just wasn't ready to speak so he keeps quiet, picks up the bottle and grabs a burping cloth from the laundry room before making his way to the nursery.
"Here you go, Sweet Girl. I brought food for you." Fitz coos, trying to peek around Olivia as he enters the room.
And then it happened. She said her first word and it definitely wasn't 'Momma'.
Lola's giggling brings him out of his story telling reverie.
"I said 'Daddy', first?" Lola laughs, throwing her head back against Olivia's shoulder. "Poor, Momma."
"Yeah. She was a little upset but you said 'Momma' a week later at a huge party that we took you to so she felt like you were saving the best for last."
Lola shakes her head, her curls bouncing in the process, and lays her head back on Olivia's chest in its previous spot.
"Momma's silly." She sighs, closing her eyes to listen.
And it hits him again, that this is all that they'll ever have. Moments in a hospital room where her mother would never properly hold her or tell her stories or make her laugh.
"Mr. President, a medically induced coma will help her heal properly. Her body and her mind just need a little time to catch up to the trauma and after we stop the medicine, she should be just fine. Don't worry."
Don't worry.
"We'll find whoever did this. They're not going to get away with trying to hurt Washington D.C.'s greatest asset. We're doing everything we possibly can, Mr. President. I promise. Don't worry."
Don't worry.
Those two words always stuck with him. How ironic they were.
Sometimes he wanted to find the nurse and police officer that told him that and yell, scream, do anything that would help him grieve because he didn't worry, just like they told him to and two years later his wife still wasn't with him and her perpetrator still hadn't been found. He had stopped praying about it a long time ago. He would never understand why God would allow him to experience Heaven on Earth before sending him straight to Hell.
Lola's even breathing captures his attention and he longingly smiles at the pair. It's easy when they're both sleeping to imagine that Olivia would wake up and run her hands through Lola's messy thick curls, causing the two of them to joke about the fact that she was nearly bald until she was two. To imagine that eventually she would leave and they would go home where she would make Lola's lunches and tell her silly stories from when she was a baby. When they were sleeping he could imagine anything he wanted to. He could imagine that he was happy. He could imagine their future. What he couldn't imagine was that his future would lay unresponsive in this cold room forever.
Fitz sits back in the chair, letting tears fill his eyes and roll down his face undisturbed. He rarely brought Lola here because it was hard to watch her get older as Olivia stayed the same.
It felt like everyone was moving, changing around him but for the rest of his life he would be stuck in this room with the love of his life.