It's hard to get any attention in a busy hospital, particularly when rushed nurses tend to rank a sprained ankle fairly low on the scale of injuries that need to be seen to. They got her a bed – not a room of her own, just a bed in a room with about six other people, coughing and sniffling and complaining loudly about whatever the hell was wrong with them and why wasn't there a doctor seeing them instead of the kid with the asthma attack? Maureen gives up waiting after about an hour, and somehow manages to doze off, though she's not sure how with all the noise around her and the pain of a twisted ankle without any painkillers.
She wakes up when someone touches her arm lightly, jumping a little as her eyes snap open. She finds Roger standing there at the side of her bed, looking more worried than even she thinks a sprained ankle warrants. He runs his fingers through his hair, frowning down at her – the way his hair's all messed up, sticking up at odd angles, it looks like he's been running his fingers through his hair a lot lately.
"Hey, Maur," he says softly, in a voice appropriate to a quiet, private hospital room, not a crowded, public area like this. "Are you – are you okay?"
"Uh... yeah," she answers slowly, frowning at him. "Why're you here?"
"You called Mark, right? He told me–"
"Wait, wait. What did Mark tell you, exactly?"
"That you were in the hospital." Roger runs his fingers through his hair again, and Maureen notes a shade of gold that wasn't in his hair the last time she saw him – he's dyed it again since then. Her fingers itch to reach up and smooth his hair, so she balls her hands in her lap and tilts her head to the side questioningly.
"And then...?"
Roger glances down. "And then I... asked which hospital and went to go find you." Maureen laughs despite herself, biting back a lip at Roger's concerned frown. "Maureen, what happened?"
"I sprained my ankle!" She doesn't quite say the idiot, but as long as they've known each other, she can imply it with a tone and he'd know exactly what she meant. "I tripped on some ice and..." The worry in his expression fades to relief.
"That's all?"
"All? It hurts like hell!"
"I know, but you're... you're okay."
"Yeah." She shifts over a little on the bed, hissing a bit as she shifts her ankle, and then smiles at him hopefully. "You wanna... sit with me and talk until I actually get a doctor who'll get me some painkillers or a splint or something?"
There's a pause, and then a returning smile. "Sure."
He slides carefully onto the bed, careful not to touch her – she'd like to think that it's because he doesn't want to jar her ankle, but she knows it's not. "So..."
"You dyed your hair," she says softly. "Again."
Roger smiles wryly, shifts his hand like he means to touch it again, and then drops his hand again. She's glad, because she doesn't need any more temptation to smooth his hair, to find an excuse to touch him. "Yeah, I did."
"Why?" she asks, and he shrugs.
"I got bored." She smiles, they keep talking, and pretend they don't want to be closer than they are right now, pretend they enjoy talking about nothing, pretend there aren't more important things they could be saying to each other. Maureen does forget, though, that she's been sitting here for at least two hours and that her ankle still hurts and that she still hasn't talked to a doctor yet. For the moment, it doesn't matter.