Notes: Picks up at the end of "On My Way". Recovering from that much implied severe trauma is a bitch.
She feels nothing and everything all at once. Her bones shatter on impact, she knows, but still she feels no pain from it. Glass slices through skin and clothes with equal ease. Still no pain. A dull throb reverberates across her lower back, but not painful. Her head aches, her ears ring, her vision blurs to blackness. Nothing.
Her heart, though... She feels it thrumming the beat of a name, probably several names, each one more concussive than the last. They burn, sear her like a benediction. Her lungs caught fire next and each successive breath gurgled flames.
A muddy voice beckons over the beat but she only groans a single word, that last name pummeled into her soul.
"Rachel."
...
She hears machines first. Pumping, hissing, beeping machines. Then, a voice rises gently over the din. It sings a tune, a lullaby perhaps. It's too soft and her hearing too broken to clearly discern. Another voice calls even louder, with at least a few words that punctuate the haze. "Code blue" and "crashing" and "doctor". She can't understand but she hears them.
She feels pressure on her hand next, and metal cutting into her fingers. She can't respond in kind, though she makes a vague attempt. Tingling spreads up her arm and into her chest, where it explodes into a flurry of pain. Needles, everywhere. Or knives, or an atom bomb detonation. Except her legs. She feels nothing there and can't figure if that's good or bad.
Her eyes are crusty as she cracks open their lids. She blinks and sees…eyes. Chocolate eyes, she thinks, full of hurt and anguish and all those other words that mean similar but can't quite come to her. She tries to memorize those eyes, that moment, but then they fade to a frantic silver blue and it's lost.
A hiss gurgles up through her throat. Not words. She can't form those around the rubber that clogs everything. The pressure on her hand vacates and is replaced by frenzied shrieking.
"-innie? Quinn, darling! Oh, Frannie, go fetch the doctor, or nurse, or anyone!"
A huff, and footsteps approach her. "She's got a call button right here, mom."
A piercing beep. Pandemonium tumbles into the space nearby as she tries to reach up and pull the tube from her mouth. Her hand opts instead to lay limply at her side. Another hiss shapes further into more of a groan.
"Miss? Miss! We're going to need you to step back while we examine your daughter."
A face leans into her slitted view and smiles. A man, older by the graying hair and crinkled eyes. "Welcome back, Miss Fabray."