The Long Road
Part 28 of the Robyn series
It had been three weeks. Three long weeks. To think that nothing had changed would be something of an error. In fact everything had changed. What should have been a happy return home had filled Robyn with uncertainty and anxiety. Were it not for the fact that she was reunited with her family, she was constantly under the overwhelming ministrations of Robbie. In the time that she had been back it seemed she had seldom had a moment to herself and the constant attention from Robbie was grating on her.
When she had woken in the hospital she had remembered little about her experience in the room, it had seemed faintly like a bad nightmare, a dream that she struggled to wake from. The coldness she had felt, the pain, all seemed like an illusion. Only when she had opened her eyes and seen the worried faces of her family and friends had she realised that what she had thought was an illusion had actually happened the pain hit her all over again. She had fallen into a coma, a dreamless empty coma so different from the one that she had experienced before, a complete contrast to the twisted confusing world she had found herself thrown into before. They had been waiting for her to wake up, for days they had been by her bedside, now she was awake she could feel the same fear she had felt before. She had felt their worry as acutely as she had felt their relief that she had woken up, but no one's worry had been as acute as Robbie's.
Even before she had woken up, she was sure that he had spent every waking moment beside her bed in the hospital, refusing to leave her and keeping watch for a threat that she didn't know existed. He had been a constant presence even when Langford demanded that he draw the map of the tunnels and refused to take no for an answer. It seemed the only time that she was free of him was when the nurses came to give her a wash or take her to the shower. More than once she had found herself asking the nurses to take a little bit longer to take her back to her room or to take her back via the windowed corridor that overlooked the hospital's Gardens, knowing that he was in her room and trying to avoid the smothering feeling his presence was beginning to generate within her. If not for the occasional visit from Sportacus or her grandfather interspersed with visits from those of her friends who had been able to get to the hospital, she was sure she would have suffocated.
Of all the faces she had seen since she had woken up there was one person that remained elusive. She had been faintly aware of his presence in the room that night but had not seen him since their argument. His words still hurt her and she could not wash the feelings they had generated within him from her memory. Worse still were the feelings that he had generated within her. Doctor Cole had told her that Boris had come to see him, asking him to allow him a chance to speak to her and try to make up for his actions. Sportacus had told her that Boris had been in the room that night and had helped him save her but she had not seen him since. As far as she was aware he hadn't been to see her.
At least while she had been awake.
After endless days trapped in a hospital bed in her room, under the watchful eye of the medical staff and Robbie a discharge date had finally been arranged and she remembered the days before her discharge being the longest she had experienced in her whole hospital stay. When the day of her discharge came she was happy for a time but it was a happiness she found short lived.
Being back home seemed to do little to calm down Robbie.
More often than not she would find herself ensconced in his prized orange chair, wrapped in his blanket. He catered to her every need and whim, giving her everything she wanted with one exception – space. Almost every night she would find herself awake staring at the ceiling and valuing the solitude that the darkness gave her. Sometimes he would sleep downstairs, stretched out on the sofa as she remained in his chair other times he would retreat to his old bedroom on the rare occasion that she was allowed back to hers. It seemed as though the only time she got away from him whether times that she accommodated to her personal hygiene, tasks that were often done with the assistance of her grandmother as she still lacked the strength to be fully independent.
Somehow it seemed as though today was different, it had started differently to how she had become used today starting. Robbie had woken her as usual with a drink and some fruit for breakfast coupled with the medication that she now had to take to control her seizures and manage the pain that still dogged her. Once he had ensured that she had taken all of the tablets he had returned to the kitchen leaving her alone when he would normally have remained with her to eat his breakfast and ask her what she would like to do for the day. Eating alone she could hear him clattering around me kitchen, she could hear the sloshing of water and the sound of the tap running as he rinsed the dishes and placed them on the draining board. She frowned as she remembered that he had washed up the night before and tried to work out why he would be washing up again.
Her answer came when she heard footsteps on the landing and looked up to see Kit coming down the stairs.
