Buffering Chapter 2, a mario fanfic

Chapter 2-

Beep

Mario paced back and forth in front of the door to the guest room Daisy was resting in. Luigi leaned on the wall, trying to stay calm. He knew he was horrible at hiding his emotions, but trying not to react to anything made him seem calm. However, Mario could read his brother like a book.

"This is all my fault, isn't it?" Mario asked, mumbling.

There was a stern silence as Luigi considered his words. The repeating beep was still blaring in the other room.

"There's no use in blaming yourself." Luigi finally stated. "It doesn't change the past."

"I know, but…"

"And you were technically doing what was right," He interjected, "You just did it the wrong way."

"I didn't mean to hurt her…I didn't even expect it."

Luigi remembered the warning he gave Mario before he blew the castle to kingdom come. Go for the shed, but be careful. Mario never took his brother's warnings seriously. It was a habit that he needed to change, but it was one out of the many.

"No one did." Luigi replied, his voice sounding distant and faint.

With that, the door opened. A Toad doctor stepped out, a bland expression on his face. Luigi looked up while Mario looked away. Peach stepped out beside the doctor, along with Daisy's father. The king looked at them all, nodded, and then left, without another word. No one saw his expression clearly, but they could see he wanted to be alone.

"How is she?" Luigi asked, breaking the stillness of the hall.

The doctor looked down at his clipboard, and then turned back to the beeping machine. The digital green lines swayed up and down, which was the sign of a normal heart rate. "She's in a coma." The doctor said, turning back to them.

I know, Luigi thought, Next thing you're going to tell me is that she's a girl. He scolded himself quietly for the sarcastic comment. Inside him, Mr. L was trying to find ways to break out and so far, he was gradually winning. The more stress Luigi went through, the weaker his mind was, thus enabling Mr. L to escape.

"I believe they mean if she will be okay." Peach corrected politely.

"Oh! Right…" The doctor flipped to another page, "She'll wake up in a few days…"

Mario looked over to him. This was good news.

"IF she gets the right treatment. Without it, she'll probably stay in the same state that she's already in…forever." He put emphasis on the word forever as if he was trying to sound dramatic.

Mario turned away.

"What kind of treatment?" Peach looked over at Mario.

"Uh…She'll need to be checked on every hour and she'll need to be resting at all times. The good news is that she's able to move certain parts of her body already, so she's making a fast recovery. And she can hear, but can't respond."

After a few moments of silence, Peach thanked the doctor and showed him back to his quarters. She silently sat on one of the chairs outside of Daisy's guest room that Peach had let Daisy stay in whenever she was staying in the Mushroom Kingdom. The door was open and the beeping was louder. The three didn't speak for the longest time. They didn't even look at each other.

Peach hated the silence and she tried to think of something that could get them talking again. "At least she'll be okay…" Her voice suddenly trailed off and she began to cry- right in front of the brothers. Peach was a damsel and she was weak, but she would never cry in front of people. "I-I'm s-s-sorry, I-I just…" She couldn't speak anymore. She hid her face in her thighs and continued to cry.

"I don't want to do this anymore." Mario felt his eyes begin to water, but he bit his lip, forcing himself to stop. As he tasted his own blood from his lip, he walked away from the two. He headed for a vacant guest room so he could lock himself in the bathroom and cry in peace.

Luigi expected himself to cry along with the others, but he just stood there. He looked into the room Daisy was settled in and he slowly walked in. His spine suddenly tingled with the feeling that he was trespassing. The machine blared every second, in rhythm with his heart and hers.

Daisy looked so peaceful- as if she were in a fairy tale gone horribly wrong and was twisted every which way. Luigi could see that a stitched line crossed from her shoulder to the top part of her chest. He couldn't tell if it continued any farther, because the hospital dress covered most of her body, and frankly, he wasn't ready to find out. He recalled what the doctor had said about how she could hear and how she could move certain parts of her body.

"Hey." Luigi said softly. He felt insane for talking to Daisy while she was still in a coma; it was like he was talking to himself. "I hope you remember who I am, because if you don't you'll wake up thinking that a pedophile was talking to you…What the heck did I just say?"

Peach looked up at Luigi. Her eyes were a light shade of pink from all the crying she had done. She looked at him suspiciously and stood up.

He pulled the chair next to the machine closer to Daisy's bed. He sat down and tried to correct himself. "What I mean is: if you lost your memory because of this whole thing, it would be horrible because you'd forget all the fun times we had together." He cringed, thinking that he said the wrong thing. "I mean, not just us…Even though we did have a lot of fun times together. No, wait…I mean…I mean, I love you…No!" He slammed his palm on his forehead. "I'm such a loser. I really hope you can't hear this. I mean, not like I don't want you to hear this…No...Wait, yes…Wait…"

Peach couldn't help but giggle and let a tear roll at the same time. Luigi turned back to her. "I've lost it, haven't I?"

"All the best people do." She walked closer.

Luigi gave a slanted smile and turned back to Daisy. He almost expected her eyes to be open, but he knew it wouldn't happen this soon. He gently put his fingers on her open hand. Her fingers twitched as they slowly closed around his.

The lightened one glared at his counterpart. "You have no respect for her, do you?"

"All I said was that love is overrated." The darkened one crossed his arms. "You need to stop being so…snooty."

"I am not snooty!" The lightened one whined.

Daisy lay on the floor, her hands thrown over her chest. She breathed heavily, and smiled. The lightened one was right. She had heard everything that had happened in the past hour. She heard the annoying beep of the machine, she heard the doctor taking oral notes on her condition, she heard Peach crying (which almost made Daisy want to cry herself), and, her favorite part, she heard Luigi talking to her.

He was indeed insane, through Daisy's eyes.

But, he was still the same person she had befriended years ago. Being locked in her mind, she ironically had more time to think. She thought about all Luigi had said and laughed over how he fumbled over his thoughts and words. However, one part shone out through everything else. Those five words he mumbled: I mean, I love you…

Daisy knew that Luigi had certain feelings for her; feelings above friendship and care. He never could admit it in public, nor to Daisy herself. He had tried before, but failed, making Daisy have to hush him so she could just watch the moon reflect over the lake in peace. It must have been the fact that she was in a coma that made Luigi think he could finally say it.

Once he did, he stopped himself and continued to blabber like an idiot. Daisy stood back at that moment and gasped softly. "I love you too." She heard herself say. She passed it off as one of her reflexes, like how when someone asked for something, she automatically said "Okay." However, Daisy didn't completely consider it a reflex yet.

She wondered if she actually meant it.

OKAY! I'll just be posting the first two chapters and I want you guys to tell me if you want it to continue. Like I've said, I don't mind if you do or don't, but I just want to know. Leave a comment or review and remember: This is NOT the last chapter to this story. There are more chapters, but I want to know if more than one of you want to read it.

Click my profile for more stories that I've written and as always, I will see YOU...in the next update. BYE-BYE!