Chapter One
AN: Alright, so I think I can do this. I think I can start a story and actually follow through with it and if I don't and people actually like it, just send me a message or comment telling me to stop being so lazy. I won't mind. It's encouraged, actually. Oh, and the title is from the song Open Arms, which in my opinion is Journey's best song. Just saying. Also, I have the basic idea of what I want to happen in this story, but if you have any ideas you'd like to see happen I'm always open, with open arms, *ba dum tss* and following chapters will be longer because this is really just the prologue, if you will. Enjoy and feel free to review, positive or negative, it doesn't matter as long as it is somewhat constructive. Almost forgot; I don't have a beta, so any and all mistakes are all on me. There, done.
An incessant beeping noise is all she hears as she is awoken from a slumber of what feels like days. Her mouth is dry, throat raw and she can't recall ever having a headache as excruciating as the one she is currently experiencing. Her eyes take a moment to open and she wants nothing more than to run the dry, itchy feeling away from them with her hand, but something's restricting her.
The beeping continues from the machines surrounding her as her vision clears and she takes in her surroundings. The room is relatively dark with only one light illuminating a portion of the room, the ceiling has a barely visible brown ring from what is most likely previous water damage, she can feel cold rubbery plastic along her right arm and she wiggles a couple of her toes on her right foot only to feel a dry wool blanket and a stinging pain shoot down her leg, but other than that she can't see or feel anything because she can't move.
Panic sets in and she needs to know what happened, why she's here, why everything hurts, "Mom?" It comes out as a throaty moan, not her usual, feminine voice. "Mom?" She tries again as a few tears begin to fall down her cheeks. "What's going on?" She asks the near silence -excluding the machines around her- of the room. "Somebody?"
She can hear some rustling to her left as a shadow moves across the wall. "Shh," The person begins. It's her mother. "It's okay honey, calm down," The older woman's cool hand reaches out for Quinn's forehead and gently slides her sweaty bangs aside. "You're okay now. Just try to stay still," Her voice hides no emotion as she tries to settle her daughter down. "I'll be back in one second, okay?" Her daughter says nothing, just swallows soundly and looks at her mother's tired face.
"Nurse, she just woke up." Quinn can hear her mother say from the hallway just outside the room. "Okay, I'll go get the attending and we'll be right in." The woman, whom she presumes to be the nurse her mother was talking to replies immediately.
The shadow returns to the room as her mother goes back to Quinn's bedside, "Do you want anything? Need anything?" Her voice is so soft and genuine; Quinn hasn't heard that tone in years.
"Water." Quinn all but whispers before her mother turns out of her daughter's vision and returns immediately with a small cup and straw for her to drink from. "Just have a little bit, otherwise you might upset your stomach because you haven't properly had anything for nearly a week." A week? What happened a week ago? She thinks as she gently sucks on the straw that's just been placed directly in front of her lips. "What happened?" The question comes out as soon as the straw leaves her mouth and she'd swallowed the relatively cool water.
"Don't worry, we'll get to that in a bit. Let's just make sure you're okay first." Her mother silences her as she places the cup back on the table next to her.
More shadows appear in the room before the lights slowly rise to make them all disappear. "Hey, Quinn." A man's voice, one of the former shadows, begins as footsteps approach her bed. "I'm doctor Feldman and this is Jamie, your nurse." Quinn looks back and forth between the two of them; his hair is short and red, he wears glasses, average height and weight, her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she's a bit shorter than him. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired." She answers as she looks past his glasses into his blue eyes.
"That's perfectly normal. Do you feel any pain or discomfort?" He looks from her to what she assumes is her chart and back again. "Maybe some numbness?" He glances over the machines surrounding her and her bed as nurse Jamie moves over to the right side of her bed and starts adjusting things that aren't quite in Quinn's restricted field of vision.
"My head and leg hurt and I can't move around." She tries to look over to her right again, but winces at the pain it causes to her neck.
"The pain isn't uncommon for your injuries, but I'll get Jamie to get you something for it," He looks up at the nurse across the bed and Quinn can hear her walk out of the room. "And as far as moving, try not to too much." He smiles to try and diffuse some of the worry the blonde is guaranteed to be feeling. "We had to do surgery on your right leg to repair a tibial plateau fracture, which is just below your knee, so your leg may still be a bit numb, but it's also in a full bandage, so that would explain that limited movement. You also have a brace around your neck, which I'm sure you've already noticed and that's there because you encountered some pretty bad whiplash in the accident."
Surgery, fracture, whiplash, accident. Quinn's mind went into overdrive as her vision blurred momentarily around her. What happened? She kept asking herself, but every time came up blank, she couldn't remember a thing. "Quinn, you alright?" He looked down over her and into her eyes. "Can you squeeze my finger for me please?" The doctor asks as he gently flips over her left hand and places his right index into it. "Just squeeze as hard as you can." She tries with any strength she can find inside her and manages to just barely tense her hand around his finger. "No worries," He smiles down at her dejected face. "You can't expect your strength to be back a one hundred percent especially considering you've literally just woken up after almost a week." He takes back his finger and begins jotting down notes into the clipboard that remained in his left hand. "I'll check back again when you wake up later on in the day and we'll see where you are then. Get some more rest, drink some fluids when you're awake and try not to do too much and that includes thinking. Just let your body do its thing and it'll recover a lot faster." He puts his pen back into the chest pocket of his white jacket. "Sound good?"
"Yeah." Quinn turns her hand back over and looks back up to her doctor's face and tries to see if there is something he isn't saying. He must be a great actor because if there is something he's not saying, it doesn't show. Quinn thinks to herself as doctor Feldman escorts himself and Quinn's mother out of the room and nurse Jamie walks back in.
"Do you have a lot of pain, a little bit? How much on a scale of one to ten - ten being unbearable?" Jamie asks as she begins to move around some of the tubes that Quinn just realized were attached to her right arm.
Quinn takes in the sight of the tubes and tape then looks back up to the nurse, "About a six." She states calmly and clears her throat gently as to not move her neck too much.
The nurse brings up a bag of a clear, water-like substance and attaches it to a white machine with blue buttons on it and brings the tube, which is already in Quinn's arm up to the machine and waits a few seconds. "Alright, so I just gave you some morphine, a relatively small dose because you don't appear to be in too much pain at the moment, but if you start to feel pain anywhere, just hit this little button," She points down to Quinn's side where a white trigger lays, "or get your mom to do it if that be easier. Just make sure you only use it when you have a bad pain, like a throbbing pain in your leg or maybe your neck or shoulder area starts to get really sore and if you have any questions or concerns, just click the button on your side table to your left and I'll be here as soon as possible." The brunette smiles at Quinn sincerely, people sure do smile a lot here, she thinks as she responds with her understanding.
The nurse starts walking back over to the door to leave before turning around to address Quinn again, "If you start to get uncomfortable in your position, there are buttons on the left side of the bed frame that can adjust some angles."
"Thanks." The blonde replies, moving her hand down to glide over and feel the slight bumps from the buttons.
"You sure do have some great friends by the way. We nearly had to escort one of them out because she refused to leave." She adds as an after thought and chuckles at the memory, before looking out into the hallway and back at Quinn. "Your mom's just finishing up with doctor Feldman, so she'll be back in a minute or two and I'll be back at least once every hour on rounds, so I'll see you then. Get some rest and you'll be back to the normal high school life before you know it." With that, the nurse was gone and Quinn was left alone for a few moments where she quickly fell asleep having taken the doctor's orders of not thinking too much. Instead, she just made a mental note to ask her mom what happened and who wants to see her so badly.