A/N: From a Tumblr prompt
Madam Secretary Prompt: Elizabeth & Henry meet as students at the University of Virginia, but they don't meet on campus or even at a party. They meet at the hospital.
Hope you like it. As always, reviews are appreciated, and I don't mind constructive criticism.
It had started as just a twinge, a little stabbing pain. Elizabeth Adams placed her hand just above her pelvis. "Damn cramps," she muttered under her breath. She continued walking to class, the thought briefly crossing her mind that it was a little early in the month for that.
Sitting through class, the straight A sophomore struggled to maintain her razor sharp focus, the cramping becoming more noticeable as the hour passed. Elizabeth left class immediately and started the long walk home, taking a couple breaks as she walked the eight blocks back to her dorm room.
Finally stepping inside her room, she grabbed the bottle of Tylenol and dumped three, or maybe it was four, into her hand. Quickly popping them into her mouth, she swallowed them with a gulp of water left in a cup on her bedside shelf.
Beads of sweat formed along her hairline as she curled into the fetal position, praying for sleep to come. She wasn't sure if she slept or not, but looking at the clock, Elizabeth saw that an hour had passed. She pushed herself to a sitting position, only to fall back to the bed. The pain was so intense, tears pushed their way out of her eyes. This was obviously something much worse than menstrual cramps.
Elizabeth tried to clear her head enough to make a plan. She knew she needed to get to the hospital. Her roommate had already left town, and with Spring Break officially starting tomorrow, the dorm was virtually empty. She didn't have the strength to go door to door hoping to find someone who could drive her. The hospital was only four or five blocks away. She reasoned that she could drive herself there faster than an ambulance could come for her.
With sheer determination, Elizabeth stood and walked to the door. The pain was unbearable, but she only had to make it to the car. Then it would only take a few minutes to get to the hospital. "You can do this," she told herself.
Making her way to the parking lot, she was thankful that she had managed to snag the closest spot last night when she returned home from a late night study session at the library. Falling into the driver's seat, it took her a moment to collect herself enough to drive.
Making her way to the hospital in short order and without incident, she saw an open parking spot close to the emergency room entrance. Just as she was pulling into the spot, a new surge of blinding pain ripped through her abdomen causing her to miss the brakes and hit the parking stop forcefully.
Elizabeth cracked her head hard on the steering wheel, but had enough wherewithal to put the car in park and shut off the engine. Steeling herself for the short walk into the ER, she stepped out of the car. Elizabeth made it two steps before the pain tore through her core again, this time causing her to lose consciousness. She fell in a heap between her car and the one parked next to her.
Henry McCord was just about to finish up his two hour shift at his work study job. The senior religious studies major was standing in front of a large filing cabinet, filing papers for the business office staff. The switchboard rang with an incoming call. Henry sat down in the swivel chair, spun around, and grabbed the phone. "University of Virginia, how may I direct your call?" Listening, he scanned the long list for the right extension. "Alright, Professor Knight's extension is 341. I'll transfer you. Have a good day." He punched a few buttons, hung up and whipped around in the chair to finish his task.
Henry didn't realize the weight of the file drawer had caused it to slide out several inches farther than when he left it. When he spun around, Henry caught the bottom edge of the file drawer just along the top edge of his eyebrow. "Son of a-" he spat out. His hand immediately flew up to his eye and was met with the warm, sticky liquid that could only be blood.
"I don't have time for this," he said in annoyance. He grabbed several tissues from the box on the desk and slapped them over his eye.
Henry popped his head into the office of his supervisor, Dr. Marsden, who was taken aback by the sight in front of her. "Henry, my gosh, what on earth happened?"
"Oh, I turned around too quickly and the file drawer caught me." Henry was a little embarrassed by the whole incident to tell the truth.
Dr. Marsden, stood and approached Henry, pulling back the tissue. "Oh yeah, that will need stitches. Let me drive you to the hospital."
"Oh no, that's fine. I can take myself," Henry said, both wanting to avoid inconveniencing his boss and having to further humiliate himself with the ridiculousness how he'd injured himself. "My car is just outside."
She looked at him skeptically. "Are you sure?" Then she caught on to why he wouldn't want her assistance. "Hold on a minute." She stepped out of her office and went into the staff lounge a couple doors down. She came back just seconds later with a cloth towel. "Here this will work better to stop the bleeding." She handed him the towel.
"Thanks," Henry said replacing the tissues with the towel and dropping them into the trash can nearest the door.
"Ok, I'm going to cal the hospital and let them know you are on your way and that the school will be paying for the visit." Henry simply nodded. "Have a nice spring break," he called to her on his way out the office door.
Three hours later, Henry walked back out of the hospital, with five brand new stitches above his eye. He was beyond annoyed that this happened. It had made him miss his class, one that he really couldn't afford to miss. Now, he was going to have to find someone to get the notes from. His mind was reeling with all of these things as he walked through the parking lot. As he opened his car door, he caught a glimpse of something fly through the air out of the corner of his eye. Stepping back, he looked across the lot and saw a woman laying on the ground.
"What the-?" Henry pushed his door shut and ran over to the woman. She was pale and had a bruise forming across her forehead, but she was breathing.
"Hold on. Let's get you inside." Henry scooped her up in his arms and started crossing the distance to the ER. Staring down at her, Henry couldn't help but notice how pretty she was. Her blonde curls fell over his shoulder and he could feel them brushing against his arm as they moved. "Please, someone help!" he cried as he went through the double doors. A nurse stepped to the window and when she saw Henry with the unconscious woman, she flagged a resident down to help Henry. They got her to a bed.
As the nurse returned and was taking her vitals, she asked, "Name?"
"Henry McCord."
The triage nurse looked up at him, barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes, displeasure evident in her voice. "Hers, not yours."
"Oh, I have no idea. I just found her collapsed in the parking lot." Henry paused for a second. "Let me go check. I think her purse was by the car." Henry disappeared and returned a minute later with her purse.
He fished out her wallet and looked at her driver's license. Henry's breath caught in his throat when he looked at those eyes. Stuttering, he said. "H-her name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Adams." He handed the nurse Elizabeth's license. "Maybe you can get some of what you need from this."
Just then, Elizabeth regained consciousness. She groaned. "Ohhhhh."
The nurse dropped the paperwork. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"
"Sharp. Pain. Here," Elizabeth's breaths were shallow and labored. She pointed to her lower abdomen.
"Okay hon, Let's get the doctor in here." The nurse stepped outside. Elizabeth writhed in pain. Henry watched in agony. Part of him thought he needed to leave because he didn't know this person and the other part thought that she shouldn't be left alone, so he just stood off to the back and waited.
Minutes later the doctor came in and examined Elizabeth. Henry stepped out of the back and went to the waiting room. The nurse nodded to him indicating that she would let him know what was going on.
The doctor sent Elizabeth to the ultrasound lab, where the doctor's suspicions were confirmed. Elizabeth had an ovarian cyst that was rupturing. The doctor ordered an IV to be put in and a pain medication to be administered. They would continue to monitor her. If it didn't start to get better in several hours, they would likely need to do surgery. They also ran a CT scan can concluded that Elizabeth had suffered a concussion, but keeping her awake long enough to figure out how that happened, proved challenging.
A couple hours later, Elizabeth woke up. Before she even opened her eyes, she tried to access her situation. She was pretty sure she was in a hospital bed based on the rough, crinkly sheets beneath her. Her head hurt. The pain in her lower abdomen was still present, but not the sharp stabs of pain that it had been, now just more a dull ache.
She heard a noise from across the room and opened her eyes. Elizabeth barely had a second to take in the man sitting in the corner before extreme dizziness and a wave of nausea flooded her senses. She shot up from the bed, the vomit propelling itself out of her body.
Henry sat in the hospital recliner in the far corner of the room thinking about how awkward it would probably be when she, Elizabeth he reminded himself, woke up. She shifted slightly in the bed and he looked up. He watched her fingers move just a bit, and continued his train of thought about a reasonable explanation for him being there. The truth, even though it was crazy, was the only way to go. She would think him a gentleman or stalker-there wasn't much room in between.
Suddenly Henry was jolted out of his reverie by Elizabeth violently lurching forward, a wild searching look flashing across her eyes. He knew the action that corresponded with that look. Leaping up, he pulled the large tub that was on the hospital table and shoved it under her face before she emptied the contents of her stomach.
Henry was a little out of his element. He wasn't sure what he should be doing. He hit the nurse call button that dangled from the bed. Then he tentatively rubbed circles on her back to soothe her, quickly moving his hand when he accidentally brushed her bare skin where the ties on the hospital gown met. He had blushed, not that Elizabeth noticed. She was preoccupied with how awful she felt. Henry handed Elizabeth a wet cloth to wipe her mouth just as the nurse walked in.
"How are you feeling Miss Adams?"
""Please, call me Elizabeth. And, I feel like death warmed over."
"Okay. I see you have some nausea. It's probably due to the amount of pain meds in your system. I'll try to get you something to calm your stomach. Do you know what happened to your head?"
"My head?" Elizabeth asked, touching the top of her head and then her forehead. "Oh," she sucked in a breath. "That hurts." Trying to collect her thoughts, she said, "I hit my head on the steering wheel when I got here. Good grief, I hope I didn't hit another car."
"I'm sure someone would have reported it if that had happened. Now let me go grab your file and see what all we need to do." The nurse walked out of the room.
Finally, Elizabeth had the opportunity to survey her surroundings. Her eyes fell on Henry. She wrinkled her eyebrows, which caused her to wince. She gingerly touched her forehead. "Ow. How bad does it look? It feels like it looks bad."
Henry grinned at her, "It's not unicorn horn bad."
Elizabeth laughed and simultaneously winced, "Don't make me laugh." She studied him, "I know I've had a terrible day, and I'm really not on my game, but I'm very sure at this point that I don't know who you are."
"Right." Henry said, "I'm Henry McCord." He stepped close enough to shake her hand. He was certainly handsome she thought, then she caught sight of the stitches above his eye and gasped.
"Oh, Dear Lord, please tell me that I didn't hit you." The thought that in her pain, she might have hit someone while she was driving to the hospital was doing nothing to help her already rolling stomach.
"What?" Henry asked in confusion. "No, you didn't hit-" Then he remembered the stitches. He touched them carefully. "No, this is totally the product of a file cabinet drawer gone rogue.."
Elizabeth laughed and squeezed her eyes shut as the pain rolled through her head again. "You need to stop doing that."
"I'm truly sorry. Earlier today, I was in the ER getting this stitched up and when I was getting in my car to leave, I happened to catch a glimpse of you. You had passed out between a couple of cars. I carried you inside." Now comes the tricky part. "I was going to leave, but that didn't seem like the right thing to do. It just seemed-I just thought-that someone should be with you. I just didn't want you to be alone."
Henry stepped back and dropped his head. Yeah, this is definitely going the wrong direction. "So," he said, making eye contact again. "Now that you're awake. I'd be happy to call someone for you, so, um, you don't think you have a creepy stalker hanging around your room. Not that I'm that, I'm not, but you don't know me so you don't know that. Oh wow! I'm going to stop trying to make it better now. Can I call your parents or a friend for you?"
At the mention of her parents, Elizabeth had to physically will herself not to break down in tears, especially in front of this- She tried to put words to the man in front of her. This incredibly handsome, caring and sweet, although very awkward man. As Elizabeth always did, she swallowed those inconvenient emotions and took a deep breath before she spoke. "Thank you Henry. I appreciate it very much. There isn't anyone to call, but I do thank you for waiting. That was a very sweet gesture, and not stalker-like at all. But, I'm sure you have someplace to be going or someone who's waiting for you. I don't want to be keeping you any longer than I already have."
Those eyes. He'd watched them intently since she'd been awake. She had the most beautiful eyes of anyone he'd ever seen before. As he'd been talking to her just now, he had watched them cloud over briefly at the mention of calling someone. Something about it pulled at his heart. He wasn't sure, but something was amiss.
"Okay then. I'm just going home. No special place or person waiting. I don't want to hang around where I'm not needed, and be weirder than I already am. But, if you change your mind, I'm just a phone call away." He stepped over to the sink and pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and a pen from the table. "Here's my number," he said, jotting it down on the towel. "I'm not going anywhere for break either, so really if you need something, call." Leaving the phone number on the table, he waved, "It was nice to meet you Elizabeth." With that he stepped out of the room, sadly thinking that he would likely never see her again.
Elizabeth sighed as the pain from her head just would not subside. At least, she thought, I can't feel the earlier pain. Either the ovary was calming down or the pain meds were working really well. She struggled to reach the edge of the table and pull it to her. Elizabeth was really curious as to what Henry wrote, because she could tell that he'd written more than just a phone number. Picking it up, she smiled and the tears fell from her eyes. It had his name and number and underneath was written, "You never have to be alone."