Ack! So, after watching the eighth episode (which aired this morning!) I couldn't help but imagine this...scene. Anywho, it's finally begun again! Yes! Ah, I can't wait for next saturday, really, it couldn't come faster enough. These past few months have been like torture, waiting for YJ to start airing again...and when it ends, I think I may just cry. Unless they renew it for a third season, which I've heard they're thinking about! Anyway, enough of my ranting, and enjoy this sickly sweet, hug fest of fluffiness with a pinch of angst!
What could go wrong?
Her voice echoed in his ears as he stared down at her, feeling his throat close and his legs go numb with disbelief. He had known it wasn't a good idea, he had known he should have gone with her, and even though she had promised him that she would be fine, here she was…attached to machines that kept her alive.
His insides felt like they were ripping apart, slowly, agonizingly, more so than he could have even imagined.
Wally collapsed into a chair nearby, staring unblinkingly at Artemis. Laying in the hospital bed with various tubes and needles hooked into her body, she looked so small, so fragile. So breakable. He let out a shaky breath and hung his head with closed eyes.
In a twisted sort of way, this was his entire fault. He had felt that something was going to go wrong, and yet…he let her go. Why? He wanted to ask himself. Why had he let her go? And all alone at that? He, as her best friend, as her boyfriend, should have put his foot down—should have made her see reason in this mess of a plan. He should have made her see that it never could have ended well.
Now, as he brought his head back up to look at her, he felt that pang of guilt, anxiety and self-loathing slam into him again, as forceful as ever like a slap to his face—it stung. It was all his fault. The blood smears on her cheek, the gash on her forehead, the broken ribs, the dislocated ankle…the defibrillator and the ventilator. That horrid ventilator made her look even worse, even smaller, even more fragile, what, with it going through her nose and her mouth.
A coma.
A coma, they had told him.
She wasn't dead, just…sleeping.
All at once, he wanted to cry. To just hang his head, grab onto her hands and cry out the pain that stabbed through him so deeply. It was killing him, seeing her like this, not knowing when…or if she would wake.
"Artemis," he choked, voice failing him, tears stinging in his eyes like acid. "Arty…I'm here…" He stood on shaky legs again, feeling his knees wobble with the pressure he placed on them, and fumbled over to her bed before kneeling. He searched for her hand, finding the one with the heart monitor attached to her index finger, and gripped in loosely, not wanting to cause her any pain—if she could even feel pain.
She gave no response to the touch.
"Artemis," he tried. "Hey, babe, open your eyes? Please?"
It felt like he was pleading with a corpse. She didn't move, not even a twitch. There was only the robotic rise and fall of her chest as air was forced periodically into her lungs. The heart monitor beeped rhythmically, signaling that she was indeed alive…just, completely unresponsive.
"Oh, God…" he gasped, trying to breathe. He had never felt so claustrophobic before, it was as if the room was getting smaller and smaller and oxygen was becoming scarcer and scarcer. "All my fault…" he rasped, clinging to her hand. "I'm so sorry, so sorry…"
But his apologies were only falling on deaf ears and the tears that burned in his usually bright eyes threatened to fall. Viciously, Wally bit down on his bottom lip, letting his incisors cut into the soft flesh. It was all he could do to force himself to keep those tears at bay. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold out for very much longer.
Artemis, his Artemis, was in a coma. Lying there, looking worse for wear, almost damaged beyond recognition, lifeless even. A coma. It meant that she might not wake up—that she might never open her eyes…that she was brain dead.
He wheezed.
No, he didn't want to think about the negatives. He was supposed to stay positive, think positive, be encouraging.
"Excuse me, Mr. West," a nurse poked her head inside of the room, tone soft, "I know you said that you wanted to be alone, but, there's someone who—" She stopped talking after making eye contact with Wally, his tortured gaze boring into hers.
"Who?" he managed to ask hoarsely.
"Mrs. Paula Crock," the nurse said, dropping his gaze. She'd never seen a man look so…defeated.
Wally felt himself breathe in sharply. Mrs. Crock. Artemis's mother. Her mother. "…Okay." He didn't have the right to give or deny Mrs. Crock permission to visit her own daughter. She had as much of a right to be here as he did, even more so.
Wally didn't notice when the nurse left, or when Mrs. Crock wheeled herself into the room. For a woman in a wheelchair, she was surprisingly good at keeping silent. Her presence didn't register with Wally until she shakily breathed, "Con tôi…"
And instead of jumping, he flinched. He knew enough Vietnamese to translate that simple phrase. My baby, my child. The pain in those two words was enough to rip his heart open all over again.
"Mrs. Crock," he whispered brokenly, finding her small frame in her wheelchair next to him, "I'm sorry…I promised to look after her…and yet…" He choked at the end, squeezing Artemis's hand a little harder than he had intended to. "Tôi xin lỗi…" he apologized in her native tongue, the best way he knew how.
"Wally," Mrs. Crock started, her voice thick with emotion as well as her accent. "This is not your fault. You know this. You could not have stopped her."
"I know, I know," he said. "But I could have…I could have protected her, taken her place, something…I just…I can't forgive myself…"
"Artemis is strong, stronger than me, than her father, and her sister as well. She has lived through many things that would have broken most people; I do not intend to lose my faith in her now. Do you?" she asked him seriously, her hope and courage radiating until it was nearly palpable.
He shook his head. "No, never…"
Mrs. Crock smiled woefully, her wrinkles stretching. Now he understood why she might have had so many wrinkles for a woman her age—worry. She had had two daughters on opposite sides of justice, always fighting, always being hurt, maybe even turning on each other even though they were sisters. For him, even though he wasn't a parent, he could understand the anxiety and the anguish that came with that. Mrs. Crock wheeled herself closer to Wally and her daughter.
"Artemis, không cho lên. Wally nhu cầu của bạn và tôi cần bạn là tốt. Con gái của tôi, tôi yêu bạn," she murmured softly, resting her hand on the side of her daughter's bed. Through the heavily accented, foreign speech, he managed to translate the meaning and choked on his own breath again.
Artemis, do not give up. Wally needs you and I need you as well. My daughter, I love you.
"Artemis," he found himself whispering, squeezing her hand again. "Baby, please, please don't leave me yet…I don't know what I'm supposed to do without you. I wouldn't be able to wake up in the morning without you there, or sit at the table without you yelling at me for eating all the bacon. I wouldn't be able to look at my old Kid Flash outfit, I wouldn't deserve to call myself a hero, or even a former hero. I simply can't go through life without you next to me every step of the way… Tôi yêu bạn, I love you…so much…so, so much."
He wasn't even ashamed that her mother was around to hear the small, heartfelt speech. He wouldn't have cared if the whole team or if the whole damn world had listened in. If his begging would bring her back, then he would beg with every breath of his body for every second he had left in this world. Artemis meant more to him than anything.
The pressure on his hand was nothing more than a squeeze that reassured—reassured that he should have the benefit of the doubt. Wally squeezed back, hanging his head once more.
Wait.
Pressure.
Something squeezing his hand.
His head snapped up, faster than anyone could see, and stared at his hand entwined with Artemis's, pale and tan fingers crossed affectionately. Slowly, his gaze traveled from their hands, up her arm, to meet a pair of slitted, groggy—yet still intoxicating—pair of stormy, rain cloud eyes. They blinked slowly and the corner of her mouth twitched as if she was attempting to smile.
"Artemis…Artemis!" Wally cried, cradling her hand into his chest.
Beside him, Mrs. Crock leaned forward in her chair, eager to know what the commotion was about. "Wally, what is it?"
"She's—she's awake…" he murmured, encasing the single hand he held with both of his, running the pads of his thumbs over her palm. "Hey, babe…can you hear me?" he asked, finding her eyes again. They were open, if ever so slightly, but he just wanted to make sure that she was all there. That this wasn't…a false alarm of sorts.
In response to his question, Artemis blinked once, her head jerking slightly. She winced.
"Oh, thank God…thank God…" he muttered, blinking his own eyes as they burned again, this time with relief. Wally kept blinking, trying to keep his tears from falling—he didn't want Artemis to see him cry, much less let her mother see him cry. From his throat, a half-strangled noise escaped like a smothered sob.
"Artemis," Mrs. Crock's voice was soft, "Con tôi, can you hear me? Bạn có thể nghe thấy tôi?" her question was a soft mix of both languages, trying for any sort of response.
Artemis tried to nod again, only to whine in discomfort at the motion.
"Hey, hey," Wally's voice was shaky, "Don't try to move yet…just, blink, okay? Blink once for no and twice for yes. Can you do that?"
She blinked twice, but then raised her hand, the one Wally wasn't holding, as if she were trying to point at something.
"What? What is it?" His eyes searched the room, looking for whatever it was that she wanted.
She pointed with a limp finger at something sitting on a desk on the opposite side of the room. Wally squinted, trying to see what it was in the dark of the hospital room from a distance. A notepad, he realized after a while. She wanted to tell him something.
"Okay, okay, I got it." Hesitantly, he dropped her hand, letting his fingers drag across the back of it in a caressing type of motion. Wally retrieved the notepad and was back by her side in less than a millisecond—he had no problems with using his speedster abilities, especially since there were no doctors observing. And Mrs. Crock, of course, knew about his days as Kid Flash. "Here, babe." He gingerly laid the pad in Artemis' awaiting hands.
She held it loosely , as if she wasn't in complete control of her fingers yet. Languidly, one of her fingers danced across the blank piece of paper, making scribbling motions. A pencil.
"Mrs. Crock—" Wally turned to ask the older woman if she could spare him a pencil or a pen of any sort. However, before the words could even leave his mouth, she had already dug out a ball point pen from the satchel she kept at her side. "Thanks," he said, feeling a ghost of a smile crossing his face.
After he had given Artemis the pen, she immediately began to write in loose-handed, large swirls. It took her a while to write, but she successfully handed Wally back the notepad.
You know, you're really cheesy sometimes, Wall-man. And I'd yell at you for eating all the bacon from beyond the grave if I had to. Love you too,
It read.
He almost scoffed. She was back—Artemis was alive and back to being her usual snooty, hoity-toity self.
Wally visibly deflated back into a chair, clutching the notepad in a vise-like grip. When he looked down at it in his white-knuckled hands, he noticed wet spots on the paper every now and then, smearing the ink of the pen, black ink bleeding into the flimsy paper. He blinked in confusion, wondering where on earth they had come from, when he felt something drip down his cheek.
Oh.
They were coming from him. He couldn't hold back his tears it seemed. Though his sobs were silent and muffled, the tears were relentless. Once he had started, it was nearly impossible to stop—kind of like rolling a giant bolder down a steep hill, it just kept going and going until it finally ran out of momentum. More tears splashed onto the notepad, one after another. God, it was embarrassing, he faintly thought. But…somehow, he didn't mind all that much.
Artemis was safe, she was alive, hell, she was making jokes when she couldn't even talk.
Regaining his dignity, the young adult used the heels of his palms to scrub at his face, wiping away any evidence of him crying. He chuckled, voice hoarse, before handing Artemis back the pad.
"Yeah, babe, you would've, wouldn't you?"
In response, she began writing again.
You know…it's okay to cry. This is the one time when I won't hold it against you. Or use it as blackmail.
Wally sighed, cradling his head in his hands again, threading his fingers through the short stands of his vibrant, ginger hair. "Artemis…you scared me, I thought you were…" His voice trailed off. He didn't even want to finish that sentence, he didn't even want to think about it.
When someone started coughing, and violently at that, his body froze and he clambered upright in a panic. He saw Artemis, sitting up, pulling the ventilator tube out of her mouth, practically heaving.
"Artemis!" he shouted, alarmed, before he dashed to her side, taking the machinery—that she had successfully managed to pull out from her mouth and throat—away from her and slipping an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, stop, don't move yet, I told you to stay still."
"Wally," her voice cracked painfully.
"Babe, don't talk, okay? Just…don't."
Artemis looked up at him, leaving the one part of the defibrillator that traveled up her nasal passages, and then to her mother, who had watched the interaction between the two of them in silence.
"Mẹ," Artemis croaked out to her mother, earning a disapproving look from Wally.
"Con tôi…" Mrs. Crock sniffled, letting her own tears run free. Her face contorted as she tried to stop herself from crying, but, after a while, she just let it be, and cried to herself for a little while. Then, suddenly, her red-rimmed, dark eyes flashed and her mouth was set into a grim line. "Artemis," her voice was husky from crying, but it could not hide the undertone of anger.
Wally gulped.
"Bạn có nhận ra bao nhiêu tôi đã lo lắng về bạn? I thought bạn đã chết, that I'd không bao giờ nhìn thấy bạn một lần nữa. I thought I was going to phải chuẩn bị cho một đám tang…" Mrs. Crock's lecture was an angry mix of Vietnamese and English that Wally could only barely manage to translate.
Beside him, in his arms, Artemis stiffened as she tried to sit up even further. Wally pushed her back down. "Tôi xin lỗi…" she managed to murmur softly, catching the ear of both Wally and her mother. Artemis blinked slowly a few times, her eyelids seeming to drag.
"No, sweetheart, I am sorry. I should not have…yelled at you. I am just thankful that you are alive…I was scared, Wally was scared, everyone was scared."
Artemis moaned something unintelligible, her eyes closing.
"Artemis? Babe? Hey, what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Frantically, Wally began firing questions, checking over her body with unbelievably fast hands, looking for any more damage.
"Tired…" she mumbled.
"But," Wally breathed, thankful that she was only tired, "you've slept for a whole two days."
At this, her eyes opened, narrowing. They asked for her what she didn't have the strength to say, Two days?
"Yeah, I just about vibrated through the floor, you know."
Artemis laughed—or, Wally assumed it was supposed to be a laugh. Then, she relaxed into his embrace and one of her hands sought his; her fingers brushed against his repeatedly and she blinked up languidly at him. Funny, she thought to herself as her eyebrows furrowed, everything was beginning to look like it was underwater—a haze, really. Then, she faintly realized that there were still various antibiotics and tranquilizers flowing through her bloodstream; she was probably going to sleep for another half a day or so.
She licked her dry lips. "Kiss me," she commanded softly, gripping Wally's hand.
He glanced at Mrs. Crock, who looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be oblivious, before diving down to meet Artemis for a bruising, passionate kiss.
All the anxiety, the self-loathing, the fear, the love was fused into that kiss. And when his soft lips brushed against her cracked ones, he could feel the sparks igniting from their contacting skin—it almost burned. For being half-awake and heavily medicated, Artemis was demanding and forceful, practically craving that little bit of contact. She wanted nothing more than to be permanently attached to Wally like this, feeling his lips moving against her own, feeling his frenzied emotions through some sort of special bond. And Wally felt the same—for two days he had tortured himself over the fact that Artemis might not make it out. That he would never be able to touch her like this, feel her like this. So, even if it was only for a few seconds, he wanted to make sure the kiss was worth it. He was never, ever going to take this feeling of complete and utter euphoria for granted ever again.
He was going to treasure every single moment of every single day that he had with her.
It was some time later that Wally noticed that Artemis had stopped responding to the kiss. He pulled away.
She was asleep again, dozing in his arms, her head nestled into the crook of his elbow. The blood smears on her cheek presented themselves again, he noted with disdain before licking his thumb and trying to wipe them away. Afterwards, leaving only a slight orange trace of the blood, his fingers roamed to the bruises on her jawline, to the scratch on her nose, to the covered gash on her forehead.
"Artemis! Wally, is Artemis okay? Is she awake?" A frantic M'gann hovered into the room, throwing the door open with rough strength that did not match her petit figure.
Mrs. Crock and Wally both regarded her with a solemn, yet peaceful expression. Wally turned away after a brief second, wondering how M'gann had managed to sneak past the nurse—whom he had specifically told to not let anyone else inside Artemis's room, Mrs. Crock excluded. Then, it dawned on Wally that M'gann was a Martian—shape shifter, telekinetic, etc.
"She just went to sleep," Mrs. Crock murmured in response to M'gann's rapid questioning, eyeing her daughter wistfully.
M'gann sighed, her shoulders slumping, a slight smile forming. "Oh…" she said. Then, when she picked her head back up, she finally noticed her good friend Artemis, snuggly tucked into Wally's arm. She smiled again. "Good, I'm so relieved…"
Mrs. Crock looked at her daughter once more, and then at Wally—who was staring down at Artemis's face as if she were a fragile newborn. She wheeled herself to the door, whispering, "I think they need some time alone, don't you?" to M'gann.
The Martian girl giggled softly, feeling a weight lift in her chest. She had been so worried, so, so worried about Artemis after receiving a monotone, droning call from Nightwing. He'd made it sound as if she had already died, that there was no hope. M'gann was sure that she would smack him later—really, he was such a pessimist for a boy his age.
"Yeah," she whispered, looking over at the pair cuddling on the hospital bed. When Wally unabashedly ducked his head to peck Artemis on the cheek, M'gann flushed pink and scurried out of the room, Mrs. Crock hot on her heels.
"Babe, I hope you know that I'm not letting you out of my sight," the redhead murmured, his lips still pressed against Artemis' cheek. "Ever," he tacked on at the end.
And he swore, by all things holy and scientific, he saw the corner of her mouth twitch, as if she was trying to unconsciously say:
What could go wrong?
Review? Please? I could really use the opinions on Wally since I've never really made an attempt at an angsty character before. Constructive criticism is much appreciated! Also, if anyone else has heard anything about a third season, please, let me know! I want to know if it's confirmed, or if it was just a rumor! Thanks!