AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story will not follow any of the outline set forth in "Both of You." I reused the one line because it felt appropriate for the given moment. Thank you to everyone for the support thus far. It really does mean so much.
Read, review, enjoy!
TWO
Drip…drip…drip…
Why was that so loud? My temples felt like they were caving in as I opened my eyes. I didn't have the strength to turn my neck, but after a few blinks I caught sight of the IV beside me which…was echoing in my head. Somehow. I could hear my own pulse throbbing in my ears as it synched with the beeping of the heart monitor. My breathing sounded like it was passing through an open cavern. I tried to move, wiggle my toes, shift my shoulders, but it was if the command didn't make it past a thought. Everything stayed still.
With a slow exhale I decided to close my eyes yet again. Where before my mind had been blank, I was now bombarded with images, all of which were mostly still frames. Each image was haloed in swirls of light and color, an under water sound rippling against the flow of pictures, as if I were sorting through an album beneath the sea. The moments were familiar but were not from my memory. After a few more seconds, I became aware that they were indeed photographs I'd seen before. Wide shots of buildings, close ups of lips and hands, several avant-garde black and whites and colors flipping through a large black book…and these pictures moved from unfamiliar and professional to warm and amateur. And then an echo…my own voice. In this stolen second, I glanced up from the album and into the bright sunlight, and Emily was smiling at me as real and tangible as ever as I said, "These are really, really good. I'm actually very proud of you."
Emily's laugh…Emily's soft laugh…
It was the sound of it which pulled my eyes open yet again as my hands clutched the white bed sheets beneath me. My throat was completely parched but my voice still echoed a low, painful groan as I shifted my weight until I was in a more upright position. My head hit pressed against the large pillow behind me as my nerves lit and tingled with the onset of blood flow. My vision blurred and cleared twice as my breaths came out in short wheezing bursts.
I felt sick to my stomach. Worse than the pain and swirling equilibrium experienced in chemo. I was certain if I tried to move any more I'd collapse into a pile of sick. And then I was. My body leaned over the bed, and I grabbed the nearest large container and I fucking puked my guts into it. Over. And over. My throat burned and my stomach muscles started to seize. I barely caught my breath before another wave hit me. My eyes watered as my mouth opened and expelled what was left of my insides. A few seconds before I was certain I would pass out, it stopped. My arms were weak and heavy, but I somehow managed to put the mess onto the floor, hearing it slosh with the sounds of my stomach contents. I gagged at the taste of puke on my tongue and teeth. I wiped my lips on the back of my hand several times, pushing the tiny chunks clear of my chin.
Breathe…breathe for fuck's sake…breathe now that you fucking can…
With each inhale, I tried to focus on something which wasn't here in this smell of death. Something worth clinging to…living for…someone…
Closing my eyes, I saw my mum's face. She had moved to Tahiti before Emily and I uprooted to Manchester, and was hundreds of miles away helping to rebuild the world, one civilization at a time. She had no idea I was sick. No idea I was…dying…and I felt guilt wash over me.
If I hadn't told Emily, maybe, at the very least, mum had deserved to know…maybe…maybe I had made a mistake…I don't want to be alone…I don't want to die alone…
I re-opened my eyes as finally saw the walls of thick plastic which surrounded the tiny space I was occupying. There was nothing but fluorescent, artificial light everywhere. I suddenly wished for the sunlight of the recovery room, and my Emily at my bedside, holding whatever part of me she could. It had hurt. Contact. But I let her stroke my face, trace my thinning arms, anything she needed for comfort.
When she found me I was beyond comfort. I had accepted what would inevitably happen to me. Had no opinion on it one way or the other. There was nothing more I could do.
I remembered having a dream, a nightmare, where Emily had settled into a home in London. Children played around a large table, the smells of a full English coming from the kitchen. And another woman's arms wrapped around the woman I had spent my entire life loving, and the worst part was…Emily had looked happy. I mean, I had done what I did so that Emily could have a life, but…seeing it, knowing it would be an inevitability, even if there was a part of her which still clung to me past death, it had been too much.
I was not going to be replaced.
So here I was, fighting. Hoping. No longer dying…
"Not so sure about that second part," I groaned as my head started to throb. My ears echoed with a high pitched sound; my hands pressed into my temples to try and relieve some of the pressure. But it just turned the shrill siren into low pounding drums, and that's when I realized…it was my heart. My chest clenched tightly and it suddenly became very hard to breathe. Before I knew what was happening my feet began to shake and the last thing I remembered was the sharp sudden pain which shot from the top of my spine to my tail bone, my eyes rolling into the back of my head before everything went dark.
My back cracked in two different places as I sat up in the waiting room chair. In the last few hours I had somehow managed to curl up into a ball, using the arm rest for support beneath Naomi's jumper which I used as a pillow. "Emily," I heard a familiar voice say as I slowly opened my eyes and felt a gentle hand brush my shoulder.
A wave of relief flooded through me as I looked up at my sister. Without a word and nothing more than a weak smile from Katie, I stood and enveloped the woman who shared my face in a bone crushing hug. Gentle swaying turned to soothing lower back strokes and the longer we held one another, the more my body relaxed into her, and I let go. I sobbed. Again. For the hundredth time since my plane landed. But this was the first time I'd done so in Katie's arms. So I knew I could cry as hard as I wanted and I wouldn't be judged for it. Eventually my legs gave out as my voice grew horse, and Katie had to sit me back down again otherwise we both would've collapsed on the floor.
She waited several minutes, holding my hands with one of her own and gently stroking my knee with her other, before she spoke. "I'm here. It's all right now." It took several more inhales and exhales before I could look Katie in the eye. I smiled. She looked good.
"I've missed you," I said, my voice dry and cracking. Katie smiled back.
"I missed you too," she replied, her lisp barely apparent anymore as it lightly trickled over her "s"es. "You look like shit," she added, causing me to laugh as I wiped at my eyes. "Expected you would though." I could tell she was dancing around the topic of asking so I decided to go ahead and answer anyway,
"I don't know how she is." Katie nodded, glancing at the door. The waiting area was small, only a few chairs, a telly in the upper right hand corner which rested on a metal platform. So we were more or less alone. Completely isolated. It wasn't until the silence drew on that I noticed Katie was crying. "Katie?"
"'S nothing," Katie grumbled, as she wiped a tear which fell down her cheek, sniffling back a few more before continuing, "Stupid fucking bitch. What the fuck was she thinking, not telling us." She sniffled again, glancing at me. It was always strange watching my twin cry. Let me know what I looked like. Sort of. "I'm glad you rang me." My fingers tightened around her Katie's hand.
"I'm not as brave as she is. I couldn't've done this on my own." With another deep inhale, Katie turned to me, smoothing out her skirt as she did so. Her face sombered as her body language matched the obvious switch into "all business" mode her mind had flipped into.
"So fill me in. Completely." I did my best to explain to her about the anti-bodies and the follow up surgery. Katie's brain was churning, digesting the information, her eyes blinked several times as she slowly put everything together.
"You know you can look at stem cell research. Provided she survives this bought of surgery." My eyes narrowed.
"You're a pediatrics nurse, Katie, what the hell do you know about stem cell research?" Katie's lips thinned.
"Plenty thank you. Embryonic tissue is used in the growth of stem cell tissue, dozy cow. But it'd be expensive." I sighed and rolled my eyes.
"Which there's no way we can afford." Katie's face softened again as her hand went back to stroking my knee.
"You let Mark and I handle that, yeah?" Just as I was about to protest taking money from my sister and her husband, the glass door opened and Doctor Hoffman entered. My heart dropped to my stomach as I saw the quiet expression on his face, and I began to feel faint. Katie's hand splayed firmly across my lower back.
"Hello, Emily," he said in that same infuriatingly kind voice. I thought it'd be better if I stood. So I did, and folded my arms in front of me.
"How—how is she?" I stammered, trying to sound as level as I could, but was very grateful for Katie's contact. Hoffman looked like he was struggling to put all the words together, and so I added with a hollow laugh, "For a cancer specialist you're shit at delivering bad news." He smiled.
"I always have been," he said, and motioned to the chair behind me as he suggested, "please, Emily, have a—"
"No thanks," I refused quickly, and my brain asked the question my lips couldn't convey.
Is she dead?
"It's not great news Emily, but it isn't terrible either," he said, resigning to the fact that I wasn't going to make myself comfortable for this conversation. "Naomi experienced a mild seizure." Katie's grip tightened in the fabric at the back of my shirt. My jaw tightened, and my feet started to shift. "We got her stabilized rather quickly. There was the risk of that happening. Her body is extremely fragile at this state, but the antibodies are working their way through her system. It's only been about thirteen hours, so we can't know anything definitive for another seventy-two."
"That's three days!" Katie yelled.
"Congrats you can count," I said, dryly. Closing my eyes briefly, I inhaled and exhaled, trying to keep myself from collapsing altogether. Eventually, I squeezed my upper arms tighter, reminding myself who I was standing here for and re-opened my eyes. "When can I see her?"
"Not for some time yet. Maybe it'd be best if you got some sleep, Emily. We have your mobile number on file. We'll call you with any changes."
"I'm staying," I insisted, shaking my head.
"Emily, I didn't fly all the way out from Belfast to sit with you in a dingy hospital. I've checked into a motel, and you're going to come back with me." I pulled from my sister's grasp then and turned on her, my eyes red and swollen from the days upon days of sleepless, crying nights. But I wasn't going fucking anywhere.
"I'm staying," I insisted as I plopped back down on the chair and rested my head in my hands. My hearts was still pounding, but less so than it had been five minutes ago.
"There's nothing more you can do for her now, Emily. Not until we know more," Doctor Hoffman insisted. Licking my lips I lowered my hands and gave the man in the white coat a glossy stare.
"Thank you, Doctor Hoffman. I appreciate you keeping me updated." With another heavy sigh, I shut my eyes again and lowered my head. I could feel my hands shake slightly as I heard the familiar male voice say,
"Try to get her to sleep," before he left me alone with my twin. Katie's heels click twice before the shuffling of a bag being packed caused my eyes to shoot open and I stood
"I said I'm not—"
"I heard what you said. And I'm not listening to you," Katie insisted, grabbing my arm.
"You can't boss me around anymore, Katie!" I contended. We were nose to nose now.
"I'm not," she asserted, her lisp coming back almost full tilt as she continued to rattle off to me, "I'm doing what is best for you, because right now you're still in the intensive care unit lying beside her! And that's mental!" My eyes narrowed.
"You're fucking daft, that doesn't even make sense." I stepped back a few feet but Katie quickly closed the distance between us
"Doesn't it?" she continued, "You might as well be hooked up to a machine and laying on gurney yourself for all the good that you're doing Naomi right now. You want to help her? Really, truly, help her? Come with me, get food, get a shower, get your head in the game proper so that when she is ready to head into surgery you'll be able to see her once she leaves that plastic room!" I bit my lip. I wasn't about to admit defeat, especially when it involved Katie being right.
"I can sleep in one of the hospital beds. There's a shower I can—"
"I said proper, and I mean it, Emily. Besides, hospital food is murder on nutrition." Katie set the bag down and wrapped her arms around me again, holding me still as she whispered, "She's not dying. She's too goddamn stubborn for that."
I shut my eyes and clenched my fingers into Katie's jumper. "She had," I said, feeling another sob threaten to attack the back of my throat, "She'd given up. If Effy hadn't been able to get a hold of my project manager I'd still be buried away in work." I clutched Katie tighter. "I'm so stupid," I said, "I was angry at her for not trying. With just…life. I—I didn't know. She hid it from me, and I—I was too consumed to—" Katie cut me off.
"You can give me all the self-deprecating details while we wait for her later. Now? Shower. Food. Sleep. In that order," Katie pulled away and took my hand, but not before wiping at the tears on my cheeks. I let her lead me away, as if we were toddlers again and she was directing me toward the play set she wanted to climb.
I just…let her.
"I feel like I'm letting her down," I said quietly as we waited for the lift. Katie squeezed my hand.
"By leaving?"
"By ever leaving." The doors to the lift opened and we stepped inside as Katie pressed us down to the ground floor. There had been a town car patiently parked toward the visitor's entrance, the driver now leaning against the black metal with a book perched between his fingers.
"Mrs. Newman, Miss Fitch," the elderly gentleman said with a tip of his hat and a nod at Katie. "Back to the motel then, ma'am?"
"Yes, thank you Mortimer," Katie said as she slipped into the car first, tossing my bag onto the floor. I glanced back over my shoulder and tried to picture which room was Naomi's. I so hoped there was a window somewhere. But I knew there probably wasn't.
"I'll be right back," I whispered before I followed Katie into the car.
