Devils and Angels
Part 2 of 3
By S. Faith, © 2008
Words: 11,982 (this part: 4,727)
Rating: T / PG-13
Notes: See Part One.
hope
When he woke he could tell by the glow around the blinds that it was full daytime. Bridget was back in her bed; how he had not heard them come in and settle her back into the bed was completely beyond him. The dark smudges around her eyes seem to have grown, and her cheeks, rather than swollen, now seemed drawn somehow. They also had put her on an intravenous for fluids and nutrients. Logically, he knew she needed it. Emotionally, it was another blow, reminding him she had been out for far too long.
He sat forward, pushing the footrest down and tossing the blanket aside he got to his feet, stretching, feeling his head pound, feeling a little dizzy as he did so. "Shall I open the blinds, bring a little light in here?"
No reply. He hadn't really been expecting one.
He went around and turned the little rod that controlled the spaces between the vertical blinds, and the room was filled with light, so bright that it made him squint for a moment or two.
"Nice to see you awake," came a voice, another nurse, as she strode into the room. She was an older woman with a very kind face, almost grandmotherly. "Sally must have given you something after our little emergency last night—ah, yes, she put it on your chart." She looked up from said chart. "How are you feeling?"
"Dull throb of a headache," he said, "but it might as easily be that I need some coffee."
"You're having breakfast, you are. Says here you turned down dinner last night." She tsked.
He smiled. He couldn't help it. "I was a little off my feed last night." He looked down to Bridget. "How's my wife?"
"Holding steady," said the nurse, checking Bridget's vitals from the other side of the bed, making marks in her chart. "She'll be up and around in no time, take my word."
How can you be sure? he thought, gazing upon her immobile form.
"She's had a big trauma," continued the nurse. "Sometimes the body just likes to sleep it off."
He felt strangely comforted. Surely this woman had some experience with this sort of thing.
"Thank you," he said, his voice surprisingly gravelly with emotion. He wasn't hungry, only felt mildly nauseous. "I'll think about breakfast."
"Just say the word," she said with a smile for him, then left the room.
He went into the loo and slapped some water onto his face. He looked a bit improved over last night, but the stubble made him look even more haggard. After briefly contemplating shaving, he thought, To hell with it. It just wasn't worth it.
He went back out, settled in the chair beside Bridget and looked at her, his stomach sinking all over again. She looked so peaceful, and, despite the injuries, so lovely, like an angel. And I'm the devil, he thought miserably, who put you in this state.
He didn't know how long he sat looking at her when he heard a timid knocking on the door. The doctors and nurses wouldn't knock; they never did. He called out, "Come in."
It was Bridget's mother, straining to smile, though she looked little improved over when he'd seen her yesterday. She came bearing a white paper bag and a drink tray with two cups on it. "Hello Mark," she said. "Is she…?" She nodded her head in Bridget's direction.
"She's still out."
Pam pulled her mouth into a tight line before forcing a smile again. "I brought some coffee for you both, and, well, chocolate muffins. Bridget prefers them…"
"Thank you," he said as she pulled one of the coffees out of the paper tray and handed it to him. "I'd love one."
She set the tray with the other cup down on Bridget's bedside then reached into the bag for a muffin. She smiled as she gave it to him, and he had a generous bite then a long draw of coffee. Both were surprisingly delicious.
"Uneventful night, I trust?" she asked brightly.
Whatever change occurred on his face must have reflected that the night had in fact not been uneventful, for Pam looked suddenly stricken, bringing her hand to her mouth. "Everything's fine now," he assured, "but a broken rib caused some trouble in the middle of the night."
"Trouble?" she asked, her voice high and strained.
"Emergency surgery."
Pam gasped, tears in her eyes. "Mark, you should have called!"
"Mrs Jones, it was nearing four in the morning, everything went well in surgery. I'm sorry." He sighed. "I didn't want to call you and worry you unnecessarily."
She blinked, staring at him.
"And then they gave me a sedative so that I could sleep."
"Mark," she said quietly, after many moments of silence. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you."
He looked down to his muffin, his coffee, and felt no impulse at all to finish either.
Pam continued. "You're under a lot of stress and I'm sure you did what you thought was best."
He looked up at her, up to her sincere smile, and said, "Thank you."
Pam sighed, looking to her daughter, taking Bridget's right hand in her own. "I forget sometimes she's not a little girl anymore," she said mournfully. "She's all grown up with a life of her own, a husband to watch over her…"
"She will always need her mum," said Mark. He waited for Pam to look back towards him, and he offered her a smile, reached out to take her free hand.
She squeezed it before she released it, and smiled through a fresh set of tears. "She really could not have done better than you," she said softly, before clearing her throat. "And I don't just say that because I helped make the match," she added, a bit of her humour returning. "Now have your coffee and eat your muffin."
He took another sip of coffee, his appetite suddenly restored. After another bite of muffin, he said, "It would be a shame for the other coffee to go to waste, Pam. Why don't you have it?"
Her expression—surprised yet pleased—made him realise only belatedly that he had called her by her first name. "Mark, that's sweet, but she'll want it when she wakes."
He doubted she'd be allowed to have it when she woke, but he didn't want to burst her bubble.
The coffee and the muffin were dispatched in no time flat, and he rose to sit on the side of the bed to take his wife's left hand again in his, the rings firm against his fingers.
"I should let her father come in," said Pam softly, though she made no move to rise or to release Bridget's hand. "He's probably aching to see her."
"I could go and—"
"No," said Pam. "Your place—"
Suddenly, Bridget's breathing changed; it got deeper and stronger just as he felt a miraculous pressure on the fingers of his right hand. "Mark," came the quiet, rasping, yet firm voice from between her lips as her eyelids fluttered and struggled to open. "Is Mark all right?"
Pam hiccoughed a sob and squeezed Bridget's hand more tightly but bit down on her lower lip, holding back what it was he knew she wanted to say. Bridget's eyes opened at last, and he never thought he'd be so happy to see that shade of blue again. "My love," said Mark, straining to keep his voice strong. "I'm right here, and I'm fine. How do you feel?"
She blinked very slowly. "Like I hit a deer."
He chuckled spontaneously just as tears spilled out of his eyes afresh; he released her hand so that he could do his very best to embrace her given her injuries, to then cup her face in his hands and place gentle kisses on her bruised cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he said in a low whisper, pulling back far enough to look into those glorious (albeit slightly reddened) sapphire eyes of hers once more.
She shook her head, as if to say don't apologise. Soundlessly she said, "I know."
"We were so worried," came Pam's tremulous voice.
"Oh, Mum," said Bridget, turning her head slowly; Mark sat up to allow her mother to give her a hug too. "I'm sorry I ruined your party."
Pam sat up, and said in that familiar maternal tone, "Nonsense. There is nothing more important to me than my family: my girl, my son…" She drifted off, smiling and crying tears of happiness, darting a glance to Mark as she wound down. "Let me go and get your father, darling."
Mark said, "Pam, I can go—"
Pam, however, would have none of it: "Mark, as I started to say before, your place is at her side. I'll be right back."
As Pam left, Mark brought her left hand up to his lips, closing his eyes. "It's very good to have you back," he said quietly.
"Back?" she said, her voice stronger but still rough. "What do you mean?"
He raised his eyes to her again. "You've been unconscious since the accident."
She blinked with incredulity. "Like, for weeks?"
Perish the thought, he said to himself. "Since yesterday."
"Oh. Guess that doesn't mean I've lost a bunch of weight."
He laughed lightly. "No, darling." He was then struck with a sudden sense of dread, worried that some after-effects of the accident wouldn't have presented themselves until she woke…
"Mark? What's wrong?" she asked in a rough voice.
He stood, releasing her hand, and went to the foot of the bed to pull the covers up. Her feet were clad in hospital-issue booties. "Wiggle your toes."
"What?"
"I said—"
He stopped short when he saw the tell-tale signs of her toes moving underneath the fabric of the socks. "I heard you," she explained; "I just thought it a weird request."
He sighed with relief, steadying himself against the back of his recliner before going back to sit at her side again. "Was just making sure everything was in good working order."
She smiled. "I'm not sure about good at the moment—" she started to say, then groaned as she tried to move a little bit. "What this around my ribs?"
"That would be to keep your broken rib behaving," said Mark.
"Ah," she said. "That explains the pain in my side."
"Welcome back, Mrs Darcy," said a new voice, the grandmotherly nurse, as she came in with the charts. "The rest of your family's outside but I told them to wait until I got a look at you." She shot a look at Mark. "I hate to say 'I told you' but—"
Mark laughed. "In this case, I don't mind."
Bridget merely looked puzzled.
The nurse declared that she was in good enough shape to raise the head of the bed despite the surgery, and she also gave her a little something for the pain. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?"
"I thought I smelled coffee…" Bridget began.
"Water it shall be," said the nurse. "And in a bit, maybe some gelatine."
Bridget pouted. Mark had never been gladder to see it.
After the nurse left, Mark heard a soft knock, heralding the arrival of Pam and Colin Jones along with his own parents, who came tentatively in, but whose faces lit up at the very sight of Bridget awake and aware. His father, Malcolm, was bearing an arrangement of assorted flowers with a "Get Well Soon" banner across them.
"Poppet," said Colin Jones, going to Bridget's side, bending to kiss her cheek. "We've all been beside ourselves with worry."
"I'm sorry to have caused such a fuss."
"Nonsense," he said, sitting on the bed beside her. "It's never a fuss when it's someone you love. I'd do anything for you, my dear."
Mark's mother came around to give Mark a stronger hug than he was used to; she looked haggard from anxiety, too, but was smiling now. He felt his father's hand, firm and reassuring, on his shoulders. "We heard about the surgery," she said quietly. "Must have been a terrible fright for you."
"Surgery?" exclaimed Bridget.
"Yes," said Mark patiently. "It was a very badly behaved rib, after all."
She chuckled but then winced with pain. He felt badly for making her laugh, and hoped the painkillers would kick in soon.
"These are for you, my dear," said Malcolm, bending to kiss her cheek too.
"Oh, Malcolm, thank you," she said, raising her head towards the nightstand, pain apparently forgotten. "Why don't you put them over there—" However, her eyes then connected with the coffee cup on the nightstand and they lit with an unholy glow. "Dad, clear some room for the flowers and hand me that coffee."
"Absolutely not," chimed in her mother as she swooped the coffee cup up and off the nightstand. "Nurse says no coffee for you."
"Mark—"
"Bridget," Mark said, "do what your mother tells you."
She pouted again.
Yes. They were going to be all right.
………
Their parents didn't stay too long, because they could see how taxing it was on Bridget; almost as soon as they left she fell asleep again. "Wake me up in—" was as much as she got out before the nap overtook her, and he grinned. It was definitely a nap, not a relapse into unconsciousness. He could tell by the way she was breathing.
He ventured out of the room for the first time since he'd entered it, and made his way to the street with his mobile; Bridget's, which had been among her belongings, was beyond using due to the crash. The summer air felt wonderful, and he flipped open his phone, powering it back on, to call Jeremy to explain what had happened, and to arrange for his workload to be redistributed.
Next he phoned Bridget's boss, who always seemed slightly intimidated by Mark, to let him know about the accident. He seemed glad to hear she was all right, and insisted on knowing the hospital and the room number in order to send flowers. Maybe the man's human after all, though Mark bemusedly.
He noticed then that he had ten new missed calls, all of them from the same number: Bridget's friend, Sharon. He immediately rung her up.
"Mark!" said Sharon upon pickup. "What's happened?"
"Everything's all right," he said, trying to quell her panic. "Bridget's in hospital, but she's fine."
"In hospital?" she cried hysterically.
"She's fine," he said once more. "We had an accident on the way to her parents'. Hit a deer."
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed. "Is she all right?"
"She is fine," he said yet again, carefully enunciating every word.
"Oh my God. Which hospital?"
He told her.
"We're coming to visit," she announced.
"Not today," he said firmly. "If you want to come tomorrow, that's fine. Today was a very trying day and she needs to rest."
"How badly was she hurt?" Sharon asked.
He explained: "Concussion, head wound—don't worry, she's still got all her faculties about her—and a broken rib." He decided the emergency surgery was not worth mentioning. "Mostly she's tired out from the parental visits."
Sharon actually laughed lightly. "I'm just glad she's all right." After a pause, she added, "And you too, of course. I just assumed—"
He chuckled. "Yes, I'm fine. Just a concussion and a few cuts and scrapes."
"Just assumed since you were calling that you're okay."
"I'm fine," he repeated. "If you could call her other friends and let them know, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get back up to her room."
"Absolutely," she said. After a beat of silence, Sharon added, "We'll see you tomorrow."
………
Mark stayed in her room with her again, and in fact, he managed to slip in beside her on the ridiculously narrow bed, earning him puzzled looks from the attending nurses as they came in to check on her. He held her as they lay there in the fading sunlight, her cheek resting against his chest.
It occurred to him that maybe she thought he was apologising earlier for hitting the deer.
"Darling," he began gently, not even sure if she was still awake, "you did know I was trying to apologise before for my tart comment in the car, didn't you?"
"Mm-hmm," she replied sleepily. "In that moment before I turned away, I saw the regret written all over your face. I knew you were sorry then."
He squeezed his embrace very carefully, and said, "I'm thankful then that I seemed to have lost the ability to so thoroughly mask my feelings."
"It helps to know you would never intentionally try to hurt me."
They were both silent a few minutes more, then she spoke again, exaggerating a great big sigh. "The things I have to do to get you to forget about work for a little while."
He laughed, then raised his head enough to kiss her hair before resting on the pillow again. He felt suddenly very sleepy, and closed his eyes, allowing himself to fall under.
………
True to their words, Sharon, Tom and Jude came to visit the next day, bearing more flowers, though Mark admonished them not to make her laugh too hard. "The broken rib," he reminded. They nodded solemnly.
She seemed to laugh (and wince) quite a lot anyway.
Mark spent the next few nights with his parents, though for the amount of time he spent at her side in the hospital, he might as well have been staying with Bridget. Slowly but surely the dark circles around her eyes began to diminish; the bruises went from blackish-purple to blue, the edges turning faint yellow. Whilst at his parents', he spent some time speaking on the phone to the authorities and the insurance company about the accident; the car was deemed a total loss. He wasn't surprised, but it did leave him without a vehicle.
"Well," said his mother, "I hardly want you driving anyway, so soon after a concussion."
When Bridget was released, she insisted at staying with her parents for a few days. "I don't want to drive all the way back to London yet," she admitted, "and I kind of want my mum."
He smiled, then kissed her forehead. "Yes, my love."
Mr Jones took them back to the Gables, and Mark carried her up to her childhood bedroom; he remembered Bridget telling him once that the single bed of years past had been replaced with a double, anticipating future stays. He grinned. It was still smaller than their king, but it was far more commodious than the hospital bed. The sheets were folded down in preparation of her arrival, and he set her straight down onto the mattress.
"I'd like my flowers in here, too," she said.
"Of course."
The room was soon bursting with the scent of the different flowers, those from his father, her boss, and her friends. He had to admit that the fresh air coming in through the open window mixed with their fragrance was quite pleasing.
He turned to ask her opinion of their placement when he realised she had fallen to sleep. He went to her side and pulled the sheets up to her shoulders, brushing her blonde locks off of her face. How close I came to losing you, he thought, then vowed to put dark thoughts out of his mind.
It occurred to him that he had never really had a good look around her old room, and as he retreated from her side his eyes were drawn to a frame on the wall, to a photo of Bridget when she was a baby; her blue eyes gleamed up from the photo, a toothless smile on her cute little chubby face, her fine blonde hair pulled up and clasped back with a plastic barrette. On the bookcase beside it, he found a doll, vaguely familiar, propped upon a shelf; as he gazed at it, trying to recall why it seemed familiar, he remembered that this doll had been taken swimming in the paddling pool, long ago at his eighth birthday party. He had seen it many times in his mother's photos from the day.
At her dressing table, there were photos stuck between the wood and the mirror; one of a young teenaged blonde girl he recognised at once to be her, laughing with her arms around old school pals, braces gleaming in the flash of the camera; on what he presumed was her first ever day of school, dressed in plaid and carrying a lunch pail with a foul expression on her face; one from a Halloween, pre-teen, of her dressed as an angel. On the dresser itself, there was a small lock of almost white-blonde hair tied up in a ribbon, matching that baby's in the photo, likely from her first haircut, in a small silver frame. There was a plastic award medal hanging on the edge of the mirror, as well as a swath of different ribbons, and a puzzling rubber-over-wire bendable figure with a human body and a horse's head hanging on for dear life over the corner of the mirror.
All of it he loved as much as he did her, and the emotion that choked his throat surprised him. To think he might not have had a chance to ask her about these things…
There was a quiet knock on the open door before Pam peeked around the corner. "Are you two feeling—Oh, I'm sorry, is she sleeping?"
Mark nodded.
"If you're interested in supper, it's ready."
It wasn't a bad meal, the three of them; the food was quite tasty (a very safe shepherd's pie) and the company of her parents was comfortable as well as comforting. The topic of conversation was obvious.
"It's good for her to sleep," proclaimed Pam. "She'll recover more quickly."
"I agree," said Mark. "She's barely taken any of the painkillers she's been prescribed, which I'm glad for."
"Women do seem to have a higher pain tolerance, bless their souls," commented Colin. "Did the doctor give you care instructions?"
Mark nodded. "They've already taken out the stitches from her head, and from her side. Very small incision, indeed. Just below the binding around her ribs." He tried to shut out the mental image of the bruises on her body. "I just have to change the dressing every day."
"You know she's going to try to get up and around before she should," said Pam authoritatively, putting another forkful of mash into her mouth.
Colin chuckled. "Thankfully she'll be bullied otherwise from three sides."
Mark finished his dinner. "Speaking of getting up and around before she ought to, I'd better check to make sure she's staying put. I think the shepherd's pie will be a little heavy for her. Do you have something she could eat, in case she's hungry?"
Pam's face lit up. "Why yes. I have broth in the freezer. I'll just go and pull it out."
Mark smiled, then excused himself to head back upstairs. She was just rousing from sleep and looked up to him with a drowsy smile, pushing herself to sit up.
"Hello, sleepyhead," he said. "Are you hungry?"
"A little." She was staring pretty fixedly at him. "Mark?"
He sat beside her on the bed. "What is it, darling? What do you need?"
"I was just wondering about the…" she began, drawing her finger in the air just over her own jaw line.
"I don't understand."
"Well." She looked a little sheepish. "Are you trying to grow a beard? Was it a bedside vigil thing?"
He laughed, resisting the urge to pull her to him and hold her to him. "No, love. It was just too onerous a task to try to shave without irritating my own cuts."
"Oh, Mark. I'm so sorry." She reached to grasp his hand. "I never even really asked about how hurt you were."
"As you can see, I'm fine. Ready for a good night's sleep in a proper bed with you by my side, but fine."
She smiled, but still looked querulously at his face. "Are you going to… keep it?" she asked.
"Keep what?"
"The… beard."
The way she spat out the word, the look on her face, spoke volumes about her opinion on his facial hair. He couldn't resist a tease. "I'm not sure. I've grown rather fond of it. Lends an air of distinction. And saves me the trouble of—hey!"
She had hurled a tiny stuffed creature at him, striking him in the middle of his chest. "You won't be kissing me with a scratchy face."
"I'll be shaving as soon as possible," he said with a grin.
She smiled, apparently satisfied. "Can you bring me a little bit of supper?"
"Of course." He went downstairs to alert Pam to bring the broth to full temperature, while he took a detour to the bathroom and found his shaving kit.
When he returned to the bedroom he found her sitting up against the propped pillows, and when he appeared she nodded in appreciation. "That's more like it. The better to see your fantastic smile."
He obliged her, sitting beside her. She raised her hand to his now-smooth cheek, over the slight raised bumps of where his cuts were, now almost entirely gone. "Lean forward and we'll put it to the test."
He obliged her this as well, taking care to be gentle, his hand cupping her own face. How he'd missed kissing her; he knew it was as far as they could take it until her rib was healed, so he savoured it.
When he pulled back, she had a lovely, dreamy quality about her. "I approve."
Her mother chose to appear at that moment with a tray bearing a soup bowl and a stack of crackers, announcing her presence with a sharp knock on the door jamb. "Dinner's here!" she said.
Seeing the softness of her eyes, Mark had to wonder how long she'd actually been standing there, and he smirked as he moved from the bed to accept the tray.
She was able to eat almost an entire bowl of beef broth, one she clearly didn't care for, but ate at her mother's (and Mark's) insistence. Pam insisted on returning in a while to give her daughter a kiss goodnight. Mark insisted that both of her parents do so.
"Tomorrow," Mark said after they'd gone, "we can make you a little nest down in the living room if you like, so you don't have to be up here all by yourself."
She smiled, pleased with the idea. "What about tonight?"
"Tonight you go to bed early like the doctor said."
"I don't feel sleepy," lamented Bridget as he crawled into bed beside her.
He brushed her hair back with his fingertips, looking down into her eyes. "I know," he said. "You can tell me all about that weird little bendy toy hanging on your mirror."
"The what?"
"That strange… horse-headed thing on the corner of the mirror, on your dressing table."
She chuckled, then winced a little. "That was the first thing a boy ever gave me. Stupid prize from some kind of carnival…." Her expression softened as she continued to reminisce. "At the time, though… it felt like he was giving me the crown jewels."
Mark smiled, then pointed to the bookcase. "And how about that doll? Do you have any memory of trying to teach her to swim in my paddling pool?"
She screwed up her features. "Did I?"
"My mother has photographic evidence to support it."
"I have vague memories of thinking that it might be a good idea if she learned…"
It was Mark's turn to chuckle. He shifted a little in order to change his view, and started asking about various and sundry other things in her room. His plan worked; she went on for some time until her lids started to droop.
"Darling," he said gently, "you should try to sleep now."
"But I like talking to you. I'm not—" As if to contradict her forthcoming assertion regarding fatigue, a yawn overtook her. She grimaced again at the pain.
"Why don't you just try?" he coaxed gently.
"I'll try," she grumbled.
Unsurprisingly, she was asleep before he was.