Devils and Angels
Part 1 of 3
By S. Faith, © 2008
Words: 11,982 (this part: 4,022)
Rating: T / PG-13
Summary: Life can turn on a moment…
Disclaimer: I only pretend it's mine to play with.
Notes: This was very tough to write, hitting a little too close to home. But it was therapeutic, and in a way, freeing. Also, I am not trained, medically speaking, and research only goes so far. Any errors are mine and mine alone.
disaster
Losing a case, horrible week at the office, professional and personal arguments with his colleagues, mountains of paperwork to catch up on, three pre-trial motions in the next week…
It was really not the best time to spring a garden party on Mark Darcy.
He had silently and sullenly agreed out of respect for his wife and her mother, but he apparently had not been good enough to hide it: "Mark, what's the matter?" Bridget asked, en route to her mother's house.
"I think you already know what the matter is. I wish you would consult me before agreeing to this sort of thing," he said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I really couldn't afford the trip to Grafton Underwood this weekend."
"You know I'm not crazy about the idea of going, either, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings, and she needed an answer straightaway. Besides, you've been carrying boulders around on your shoulders, I swear!" she retorted. "You're so stressed. You need some time away, and this'll force you to take some."
"Did it occur to you that forcing me to take time might increase rather than decrease my stress levels?" he barked in return. "All I can think of is the work waiting for me when I come back, and less time in which to do it. I won't have a good time, I'll make you miserable…" He rounded a particularly sharp curve a little too fast, then cursed under his breath.
"But I brought you your very own horns and pitchfork."
"What?"
"The theme is Devils and Angels."
"For Christ's sake, Bridget," he said crossly. "Do you really think going to another of your mother's ridiculous parties dressed like a bloody idiot is going to help?"
There was no response to his admittedly too-harsh comment, and with his hands firmly on the wheel, he glanced over to her, saw how glum she looked, and felt immediately regretful. Intending on apologising, he reached for her hand just as she looked away through the windscreen.
What happened next happened faster than the blink of an eye. Her face became a mask of horror; she screamed his name; he heard a thud, a sickening metallic crunch and the shattering of glass; and then everything went black.
………
He became aware of a throbbing pain in his head and the sensation of something wet and sticky sliding down his cheek. He opened his eyes, lifted his very heavy head, and had difficulty focusing around him. The airbag laid across the steering wheel; the windshield was gone except for a crumbling, fractured frame of glass shards around the edge. The bonnet was mashed and dented, and smears of blood and tufts of fur were stuck in the folds.
He saw no immediate evidence of the animal he had surely hit—and then with a gasp of horror looked to his left, knew that the passenger side had borne the brunt of the impact. Bridget was there, slumped forward limply like a rag doll, her hair, her lovely summer dress sprayed with glass and stained dark with blotches of blood. He froze with shock, tried to say her name but found the wind had been knocked out of him.
He managed to disentangle himself from his safety belt and reached over to gingerly touch her throat, searching for a pulse at what he knew would be the most obvious point, terrified at first that he could not find one, then relieved when he did, though it was weak. He dared not move her for fear of making her injuries worse.
Oh, Bridget. Oh, Jesus. It was all he could think, over and over again in a loop in his head.
His hands, which to his surprise were streaked with blood as well, were trembling so badly he had a hard time getting to his mobile, but he managed to pull it out and press the nine key three times.
As he was speaking to the dispatcher, he knew he was not being coherent, but he couldn't think. He had no idea what time it was or how long he'd been knocked out; the sun was still pretty high in the sky, by his reckoning, though his perception of things was a bit askew. He had no idea where he was, except for a quiet stretch of road between A14 and Grafton Underwood.
He had no idea how serious his injuries were. Or Bridget's. He did, however, impress upon the man on the phone that two of them needed immediate medical attention.
"Just hurry. For God's sake. Hurry." He strained to remain calm.
The dispatcher remained on the line with him for what felt like hours, though logically he knew it was not. He could hear the ambulance sirens approaching, and raised a shaking hand to wipe his brow. Only then did he connect the wet, warm feeling on his cheek with his own injuries, his own blood. His eyes went out of focus and though he struggled to stay conscious, the blackness overtook him again.
………
He came to again with the concerned face of a paramedic hovering over him. "Can you hear me, sir?"
He nodded, slightly, then with more vigour, trying to push himself up. A second paramedic, a stocky blond man who would have looked more at home on the docks than there in the ambulance, appeared out of nowhere to help his colleague push Mark back down. "Easy, there. You've had a nasty bump to the head, but you'll be all right."
"What about Bridget?"
"She's fine, stabilised, in another ambulance," said the stout paramedic. "Is she your girlfriend?"
"Wife," he said.
"Well, we're on route to hospital. You'll get to see her soon enough."
"What's your name?" asked the first paramedic, a young, dark-skinned man with a friendly smile.
"Darcy." He tried pushing himself up again. At the man's puzzled expression, Mark elaborated, "Mark Darcy."
"Well, Mr Darcy, I'm George. How many fingers am I holding up?"
He blinked, squinting a bit. "Three."
"Nice try. Two. Lie back down and stay down."
Mark thought it probably best that he did.
"So what happened?"
He hated to think of it, his nasty comment that seemed to nearly bring her to tears, before his glance away from the road, and then the impact. "I looked away for a few seconds at most—something came out in front of the car. I didn't see it."
"Probably a deer," replied George. "Didn't see any carcasses around though, so it must have been all right enough to run off."
"Someone might be in for a nasty surprise in their backyard though if the poor critter decides to kick off."
Backyard. The word sparked the memory of Pam Jones' Devils and Angels backyard party—surely by now they were missed, surely he needed to call her parents, his own. He tried reaching into his pocket but his aim was slightly off; that and he realised the phone had never made it back in.
"What's wrong?"
"I need my mobile."
"We've got it, but I'm afraid we're here."
"What?"
"Kettering General. You'll have to wait to make your call."
………
After a thorough examination, the staff proclaimed a concussion and contusion was the extent of his major injuries. "Looked a lot worse than it was," said the doctor. "Head wounds have a tendency to bleed profusely."
In his mind's eye he could only picture his beautiful Bridget's blonde locks soaked with blood.
Interrupting the doctor's recommendation that Mark stay overnight for observation, Mark asked abruptly, "Where's my wife? Is she all right? Can I see her? I need my mobile phone. Someone needs to call her parents. My parents."
"One thing at a time, Mr Darcy," said the doctor. "Your wife is in stable condition. As was the case with your injury, the injury to her head was not as severe as it appeared, though her contusion required several stitches." The doctor looked down, and Mark's stomach dropped to his feet. Bad news was coming. "The police advised that the animal struck the passenger side. She's pretty bruised up, but we don't see any evidence of serious internal injuries. However… she hasn't regained consciousness yet."
If Mark hadn't already been sitting, his legs would have given out from under him. If the last thing she ever heard from him had been such harsh words….
"I'll stay for observation, but on the condition I be allowed to stay in her room."
The doctor's eyes widened. "Well, that's a bit of an unusual request…"
"I'll be staying in there, officially or unofficially," he said dangerously.
The doctor nodded. "Let me get your personal items, but you'll have to use one of our phones to make your calls. Mobiles aren't allowed."
………
The call to the Joneses went about as well as could be expected. Wisely he spoke to Colin, her father, though he felt a little dishonest in saying she was all right as he had not as yet actually been in to see Bridget yet. They—the Joneses and the Darcys—were going to head out for the hospital as soon as possible, and the Alconburys the Enderburys were going to stay until the rest of the party guests could be ushered out.
With a deep breath and a lead ball sitting heavily in his gut, he pushed open the door to Bridget's room and brought his hand involuntarily to his mouth:
The sheets were covering her to just over her chest; she wore a patterned hospital gown, and her head was wrapped in a bandage to cover the area just over her forehead. Her arms were raked with surface scratches—probably where the glass had struck her bare skin—and bruises. It was, however, the blackened circles around her eyes, the puffiness of her eyelids, the plum-coloured marks on her cheeks, and the oxygen tube in her nose that choked his throat with emotion. They had, thankfully, washed her hair, which was gleaming gold again, but sat limply against her shoulders and on the pillow. Lifelessly.
Hesitantly he stepped in; the door whooshed closed behind him but he hardly noticed for the concentration it took to get to her bedside. His vision blurred, but it didn't have anything to do with his head wound, and he raised his fingers to brush the wetness away from under his eyes. He sat on the bed beside her, took her left hand in his, realising she had been divested of her rings.
He was surprised by the sob that escaped his throat.
He heard the door open behind him. "Oh, good, Mr Darcy; you're here. I wanted to give you your wife's things." It was another doctor. He didn't even look up to accept the packet. The doctor continued, "She looks worse than she is. I promise you."
He looked down, willing the tears to stay back, but they didn't obey. He felt the doctor's hand strong on his shoulder, and he appreciated the comfort, but he really wanted to be alone with her. Wanted to talk to her. Wanted to apologise.
Silently the doctor left.
He slipped open the packet and put her rings back on her hand, then took it in both of his, holding it tight. "Bridget," he said softly. "I'm so, so sorry."
He half-hoped, half-expected that she'd crack open her eyes and make a joke about how he hadn't actually any control over the deer making its entrance when it did, but she didn't. Something about her silence just then—expected, logical, understandable, given her condition—made him even sadder. He brought his head down to meet her hand, and started to weep unabashedly.
I love you.
I don't want to lose you.
I don't know what I'd do without you.
He then felt another pair of hands on his shoulders. He turned, wiping his cheeks and sniffing, to see her mother had come in. It was the most sombre he had ever seen Pamela Jones; her eyes were red and rheumy, and her lower lip was quivering; she was still dressed in the floaty white dress that had presumably been her 'angel' outfit. "Mark."
"Mrs Jones."
"I'm so glad you're—" Her voice cracked; she cleared her throat. "Glad you're okay." He felt her hands on his shoulders, squeeze reassuringly before she raised one to smooth over his hair as if he were a small boy again.
Mark wondered where the others were; as if reading his mind, Pam explained, "Colin and your parents… they're in the waiting area. They only want two of us in here at a time, and no one would think of asking you to leave."
He was frankly surprised at her calm demeanour. He had half expected her to come rushing in wailing like a banshee demanding to see her daughter, demanding to know when the doctors were going to wake her up. But here she was, silent, thoughtful, and sad.
She walked around to the other side of the bed and sat, taking Bridget's other hand.
"It was so sudden," said Mark quietly. "I only turned for a moment—"
"Mark," she said, gently and firmly. "No one blames you."
"I blame myself. If I hadn't been so…" Angry. Stressed. Aggravated. And for all the wrong reasons. "…distracted," he finished at last, weakly.
"Those deer can appear out of nowhere, and quickly." She turned to look at him, her eyes wide and pleading; he knew at once where Bridget had inherited the mannerism from. "Please. Don't upset yourself in front of Bridget."
He looked back to his wife as he nodded, watched the slow and steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, felt tears in his eyes again as he thought At least she's breathing, and on her own—it could have been much worse. He just needed her to wake up. Nothing else mattered. And he had to be strong.
Pam leaned forward and brushed her fingertips softly down her daughter's cheek. "Oh, my darling little girl," she said, choking with tears again. "Don't think I don't know you were only coming today to make me happy…"
Mark already felt bad about the accident; now he felt worse having painted her mother in such a negative light in his own thoughts. He looked to Pam again.
Pam continued with forced brightness, "But! You've got the very best husband in all the world—" She turned and smiled at Mark, and genuinely so. "—and you're surrounded by people who love you."
She then stretched out her right hand over Bridget's legs, in an offer to take Mark's hand. He offered her a smile of his own, and took it.
They sat there like that in silence, Pam's hand somehow reassuring in his own for the occasional tightening around his fingers, for what seemed like an eternity. Both of them were looking at Bridget; Pam was assuredly watching for signs of consciousness as intently as Mark was.
"When she was little," Pam began sombrely, "in fact, the summer before she turned seven, she saw some older children swinging on the playground and jumping off, and decided to give it a go. Split her lower lip open." Mark turned to look at Pam—she had a smile on her face but tears in her eyes again—before he turned back to Bridget. "I was a mess. There was blood all over the place. Practically ran with her in my arms all the way to Accident and Emergency. Only needed a couple of stitches, thank goodness, and she was up and about the next day like nothing ever happened."
Mark wistfully recalled from his intimate familiarity with her lips the one slightly uneven area on her lower lip near the left corner of her mouth, otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Reflexively he tightened his grip on her fingers, felt emotion settling in his throat again. I'll kiss them again soon.
Pam continued, "She's resilient; she's strong. She'll be fine." He then felt Pam's fingers squeezing on his. "She has to be." Pam them let go and quickly got to her feet. "I'd better let Colin come in before he wears a path in the waiting room floor." She came around the bed to where Mark was sitting, and, bending slightly, held out her arms for an embrace, which he accepted gratefully. She patted his hair again in that motherly way before kissing his head. "She is, after all, surrounded by such love."
He nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.
………
Bridget's room had a bathroom with a stall shower, so he availed himself of it after they had all gone for good. He had acquired a hospital gown and gave his blood-stained garments to his mother who, bless her soul, had returned with a change of clothes for him; his father was tending to the details of the wrecked vehicle with the police and the garage that had accepted it. The pained look on her face as she had taken in his features, the sorry state of his shirt, had said volumes about his appearance, and when he had finally gotten in front of a mirror, he'd seen why.
The shirt, once white, was streaked with dried blood and other grime, and while they had cleaned him up relatively well to tend to his injuries, he found evidence of how much more must have been on him when he took it off altogether. He had several bruises and small cuts on his own face, none that he thought would cause any permanent or disfiguring scarring. I must have looked like a beating victim, he thought. He cared not for his appearance for appearance's sake, but for the state of mind of his mother, father, the Joneses… and for Bridget when she woke. He wanted no unnecessary worry directed his way.
In the shower, he gingerly washed his hair, avoiding the injury; the hot water, the soap, brought each little tiny cut and scratch into sharp relief. As he ran the soap over his aching limbs, his thoughts turned to his conversations with Colin Jones and his own parents, which were quiet but meaningful, but it was his interaction with Pam Jones that he kept replaying in his head.
Never had he seen her so humble, so shaken… so real. It was ordinarily so easy to think of her as an extreme caricature of an excitable mother, but her solemnity had driven home how tender and true her own feelings were. He certainly didn't dislike her mother, but he had also never considered himself particularly close to her either. He could see that already changing.
He stepped out, drying himself off with the gleaming white and slightly rough cotton towel, then slipped into the casual clothes his mother had brought for him. He thought about shaving with the kit the hospital had provided (again, only for appearance's sake) but decided that navigating around the cuts weren't worth the aggravation.
He went back out to Bridget. She hadn't moved a muscle. He sighed.
The sun was well on its way to setting, and cast orange rays across the room through the slats of the blinds. He switched on the lamp on the table beside her bed, then went over to close the blinds fully.
The hospital room was wonderfully furnished with a well-padded, high-backed chair. He pulled it around close to the bed and leaned back in the chair so that he could sit and watch her as she slept.
He preferred to think of it as sleep.
A nurse came in to check on Bridget's vitals, recording figures into her chart from monitors he hadn't even noticed were there. She also wanted to know if he was hungry. He knew he should have accepted something to eat, but he had no appetite. He politely refused. He noticed she flipped open a second manila folder and made a notation in there too. His own chart, most likely.
The nurse left and returned a little while later with two blankets and a couple of pillows for Mark. He accepted them with a wan smile. "You do realise that that chair is a recliner, don't you?" she asked.
He sheepishly admitted he did not.
"Hope you get some sleep, Mr Darcy," she said. "You've had a very stressful day and your body could really use the rest."
He nodded. "I hope so too."
"Just press the call button if you need anything."
………
It was a sharp, rapid BEEBEEBEE sound that brought him back to wakefulness; he realised that one of the monitors was going haywire. He looked around himself, around her in the dim of the room, searching in vain for the call button, but he needn't have bothered, because within seconds two nurses and a doctor came flying in.
"Mr Darcy, stand back," commanded the doctor. He obeyed.
Mark had no idea what was going on. He was filled with panic and dread; monitors did not make sounds like that unless something was wrong. He felt sweat suddenly on his forehead, felt himself flash hot then cold as adrenaline surged through him.
It was a cacophony of sound during which he only caught snippets of phrases—"low blood pressure", "internal bleeding" and "emergency surgery" among them—before they were rushing her out of the room. His hands were shaking as he stood there staring down at her hastily vacated bed.
The clock on the wall indicated it was just after three in the morning. He felt utterly at sea, had no idea what to do. He didn't want to call and wake everyone up unnecessarily, but he also thought her family, his family, should be here if the worst—
No. It won't end like this, he thought. It can't.
Time moved more slowly than it ever had before in his life. His only companion was the ticking of the second hand as he paced around feeling useless. It was an eternity before someone came back into the room—forty-five minutes by the clock's reckoning. He thought he must be imagining things because the scrub nurse looked anything but sad.
She got right to the point. "Your wife is fine."
He collapsed back into his chair, gripping the arms for support, pushing out a breath of relief, shaking anew. "What happened," he asked flatly, looking up.
"There was a fractured rib we didn't catch on the x-ray on the first look," she advised. "At some point when she was being shifted, it moved and caused a small cut to the liver. It might have been inconsequential to any other organ, but since the liver's so blood-rich…" It seemed she sensed she was veering close to a potentially too-explicit description, and changed course. "The monitors picked up the drop in blood pressure. The rib was easy to spot in the operating room. We were able stop the bleeding and take care of the rib with a minimally invasive surgery." She smiled. "Everything's fine. She's all bandaged up, in recovery and in a few hours they'll bring her back here."
"And there are no other broken ribs?"
"No," said the nurse. "We examined the x-rays again and we could see it very clearly on second inspection. The others are fine."
He sighed, looking to his where his hands were folded in on one another. He was determined not to beat himself up over what-ifs, but he found himself thinking them nonetheless—what if she had been able to come home, and such a cut, such damage had gone unnoticed?
"I want to see her."
"I'm very sorry, not while in recovery." The nurse looked very sympathetic. "Why don't you lie back and try to rest? I can get you something to help you sleep."
His initial reaction was to refuse, but on deeper reflection, he decided it might not be such a bad idea after all. He nodded, and she smiled, departing and returning in short order with a couple of tablets and a glass of orange juice.
Within minutes he fell into a dreamless sleep.