Here's the fourth installment. If this story goes on long enough, I may tie it into the episode called "Fonzie's Blindness," and then I can contrast the two experiences. xD
Hangin' at the Hospital
Fonzie stayed at the hospital all day. Marion brought some soup to them at lunchtime, Joanie visited for about an hour after school, and Howard stopped in after work. They all found Fonzie still sitting by his friend—sometimes with a nurse under his arm.
"I closed the store a little early," Howard told Richie. "I wanted to get over here and check on you."
"I'm fine, dad. Mom and Joanie have both been back to see me, and Fonzie's been here the whole time."
"Really?" Howard gave Fonzie a grateful look. "That's very nice of you, Fonzie. I appreciate that."
Fonzie shrugged with a martyred expression. "Hey, you can be appreciative, but I'm not doin' it for you, Mr. C."
A nurse in the hallway giggled.
"Just you keep your motor running, Georgia," Fonzie called to her.
Howard cleared his throat. "Well, I hope you're not being a bad influence on Richie..."
"Dad," Richie cut in, "what am I gonna see?"
There was an awkward silence before Fonzie broke into his deep chuckle. "Good one, Rich."
Howard relaxed. "Good point. Are you two eating all right?"
"Yeah," Richie answered. "Mom brought us soup at lunch. And with Fonzie here, the nurses will get us whatever we want. It's like having room service."
"I see. Make sure you don't abuse that power, young man."
Fonzie put on an innocent look. "Ayyy. I only use my power for good, not evil."
Howard went home to dinner, and Fonzie supervised a nurse feeding Richie some pudding and milk. He kept his supervision light, devoting a little more attention to Georgia, who was in his lap taking an unauthorized break from her duties.
When Richie finished eating, Fonzie told Georgia, "You'd better go down and send up my dinner now. Then you get back out there and make some more sick people better." He kissed her. "That's right. Off you go."
He stayed and talked to Richie a good hour after he'd eaten. Then Georgia poked her head into the room again.
"Excuse me, Fonzie. Visiting hours are over."
"Okay, thank you, doll face. I can come back tomorrow, Rich."
"Okay... Fonzie?"
Fonzie heard the great weight suspended in the up-swing pronunciation of his name. He sat on the edge of Richie's bed again. "Yeah? What is it?"
"Can't you stay here tonight?"
"In the hospital? I'm a well person. Well people don't sleep at the hospital."
"I know. It's just... I've been awake most of the day, but I haven't done anything. I haven't even seen what my room looks like..."
"Oh, let me tell you, you're not missing much. There's your bed, a couple of chairs, this empty bed over here, some windows... that's about it."
"I feel restless. And it's weird sleeping in a strange place, especially a strange place you've never seen. I mean, how would you like to wake up one day to pitch darkness and have to learn where you are just by taking other people's word for it? For all I know, I've been in a coma for years and I've been moved to a hospital in New York, and Ralph and Potsie are dead or married with kids, and—"
"Wait, wait, hold it!" Fonzie exclaimed. "What is all this crazy talk? The accident was yesterday, you're in a Milwaukee hospital, Ralph and Potsie are still Ralph and Potsie, and I'm still the Fonz! And you're still you, as far as I know. Same freckles."
Richie sighed. "I know. I believe you. It's just... kind of scary."
"All right. I get that. Just 'cause I don't get scared doesn't mean I don't understand scared. It's gotta be pretty crazy for you. But you gotta trust me; everything will be just fine, and I'll come back in the morning. All you're gonna do is sleep. You don't need me here for that."
Richie didn't look satisfied, but before he could say anything else, an orderly entered the room.
"Hey, visiting hours are over, kid. Time to go."
Fonzie stared at him. "I don't think you understand," he said slowly. "The kid is the patient. I'm the visitor."
The orderly stared back. "I meant you."
"Well, now I know you really don't understand."
"Don't hit him, Fonz," Richie said, full of concern.
Fonzie clenched his fists. "Oh, I'm not gonna hit him. I'm just gonna help him out a little. You see, my friend here has just gone through the first blind day of his life. It's got him kinda shook up. He's not ready to be on his own in a world without light with no one he knows around, especially not with only ignorant people like you to take care of him. So I'm gonna do you a favor: I'm gonna stay in this nice empty bed next to his, and I'm gonna be your on-call tonight, just 'cause I'm a sweetheart of a guy."
"But you can't do that."
"Why not?"
"What if someone sick or injured needs that bed?"
Fonzie coughed. "Oh, look, I think I'm coming down with something. I'm sick. I'd better stay here overnight for observation."
"Look, buddy—"
Richie winced.
"I am not your buddy."
"Listen, sir—"
"Sir is better."
"You can't stay in that bed without permission from the doctor."
"Oh, doc Bates and I have already spoken."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
"Fine. I'm going to go find him and see for myself."
"You do that."
The orderly left, and Fonzie hurried to the intercom.
"You shouldn't have lied to him like that," said Richie.
"I did not lie. The Fonz does not lie. I said we spoke. We did speak." Fonzie spoke into the intercom. "Nurse's station? This is the Fonz in Richie Cunningham's room, 208. I need the okay from doctor Bates to stay in Cunningham's room as an overnight attendant."
There was a long pause.
"Maybe it didn't go through," Richie suggested.
"It went through," Fonzie assured him. "Three, two, one..."
"Fonzie?" came Georgia's voice.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Doctor Bates said you can stay."
"Thank you very much, gorgeous. Send me up a toothbrush. Good night."
"Good night, Fonzie," came a chorus of female voices.
Richie awoke to an agonizing headache. He turned his head, trying to get some inkling of what time it was, then remembered that he couldn't see anything anyway.
I'm in the hospital. I fractured my skull. And it really hurts. He listened, but there were only very faint sounds from somewhere else in the ward. "Fonzie?" he whispered. When he still couldn't hear anything, he tried a little louder. "Fonzie?"
"Yo," came the muffled answer, a little late.
"You awake?"
"As of this moment, I think I'm pretty awake."
"Oh. Is it morning yet?"
"Uh, yeah... I think probably in England they're sitting down to their little buttered scones about now, you know?"
"That early, huh?"
"It's almost three o'clock."
"Oh, sorry to wake you. It's just..." Richie gingerly moved his fingers over his bandaged head.
"You okay?"
"I think my pain medication wore off."
"Wore off? They got you on a drip."
"Well, maybe it's too slow a drip or something."
"Hurting pretty bad, huh? Well, don't worry. I'll take care of it."
Richie heard Fonzie get up and move around to the intercom. "Hello, Georgia?"
"Georgia went home," someone answered.
"Oh, sorry. I just got Georgia on my mind."
Richie grinned.
"So, who's this?"
"This is Jeana. Who's this?"
"This is the Fonz. I'm with your patient in room 208. His happy tap ain't doin' its job, and his poor little fractured skull is killin' him, so be a honey and bring up some more?"
A pause, then a dry "Anything else?"
"Yeah." Fonzie snapped his fingers. "Bring yourself up here, too."
"You'll never change, will you?" Richie muttered.
"Hey, when you got a good thing going, you don't change it, do you?"
"Fair enough." Richie winced and rubbed at the parts of his scalp he could get to. "This is far and away the worst headache I've ever had, Fonz."
"Sorry to hear that, kid." Fonzie sat on the edge of Richie's bed. "Just hang on; my girl Jeana's on her way up with more of that juice for you."
"Your girl Jeana?"
"I'm an optimist."
Richie smiled again, in spite of his pain.
Jeana arrived with a new IV.
"Well, there is the best medicine in the world," Fonzie said appreciatively.
"Morphine," Jeana declared.
"Morphine? I thought you said your name was Jeana."
A giggle escaped Richie before he could stop it. His head suffered a new wave of pain. "Ow."
"Oh, get out of my way, you rascal. Let me switch this out," the nurse ordered.
"Of course. I'll just step over here and... uh, enjoy the view."
"You seen one street in the middle of the night, you seen them all."
"Not that view."
"You're not squeamish, are you Fonz?" Richie asked.
"Squeamish? Me? Nooooo. It's just you never know how someone's gonna react when they get get the tubes in their arm changed. I figured you might not want me to see you like that, you know? So, I'll wait over here."
"Well, at least I don't have to worry about seeing the IV," Richie said, trying to keep his spirits up. His head was hurting so much, he hardly cared when he felt the nurse insert the new drip.
"There; you should feel better soon," Jeana told him soothingly.
"Thank you. I appreciate you coming in the middle of the night."
"Cunningham, that's her job," Fonzie pointed out.
"Oh. Oh, yeah."
"No trouble. Try to sleep," said Jeana.
"I'll walk you out," Fonzie offered.
They must have been communicating a bit through body language, because Jeana had seemed a little cranky toward Fonzie when she first came up, but now she didn't protest his offer.
A minute later, Fonzie came back into the room. "Okay, Rich. Ready for lights out?" He chuckled.
Richie sighed. "Very funny."
"What, you joked about it before."
"I know. Guess I should just be glad Ralph's not here. I wonder why they haven't stopped by."
"Ralph and Potsie? Probably feeling bad for you. Survivor guilt or something. I bet they'll come tomorrow."
"Yeah." Richie put his hands to his temples. "I sure hope that stuff kicks in soon."
The bed sagged as it took Fonzie's weight once again. "Tell me straight—how bad does it hurt?"
"On a scale of 'annoying' to 'I can't take it?' An eight or a nine."
"Whoa."
"Yeah."
"Well, um... you don't have to be brave for me or anything, you know? You just do what you gotta do, and don't worry about anything."
He thinks I'm going to cry, Richie realized. "I'll be okay. It's just... I wish I could do something to make it go away quicker, but I can't. And it hurts so much..." To his chagrin, Richie realized that tears were indeed forming in his eyes. Crying over a headache. Great.
Richie felt Fonzie's rough hand settle on his shoulder near his neck and begin to massage his tense muscles.
"It's gonna be okay, champ," Fonzie said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
At first, all Richie could think about was how weird it was that it took a blinding injury to allow him to "see" this side of Fonzie. Then, as the massage moved to his neck, he realized that Fonzie's kneading out some of his tension allowed him to concentrate on that rather than on the pain in his head. The pain even seemed to be lessening. He closed his eyes and focused on the strong fingers moving over his skin and coaxing the knots out of his neck.
After a few minutes, Fonzie asked, "You falling asleep on me, Red?"
"I think I am. I feel a little better now. Thanks."
"No problem."
Fonzie's hand moved back to Richie's shoulder, and Richie was surprised to feel what he was pretty sure was a kiss near his eyebrow. Maybe not a kiss... that could have been... no, that was a kiss. What's the protocol here? Just pretend it didn't happen. If he wants to say anything about it, he'll bring it up. If he doesn't, I'll take it to my grave, he decided.
With that settled, he soon went back to sleep.
Now it's officially wandered into shounen ai, the land of "are they platonic or not?" Can read either way so far. It might go into stronger stuff eventually; not sure. Reviews are welcome. Share your opinions, but be nice. Extra points if you caught the song title. ^^