Pain. Searing pain. It ripped through my entire body, seeming to course through and then throb even harder in my right leg. I felt as if I was being drug along. A dull hum that could have been voices reached my ears, but I was so disoriented I didn't know which way was up. I tried to open my eyes, but it was as if I wasn't in control of my body. I felt wetness against my leg and figured it was blood. For the most part, though, my entire right leg was numb. The more I came to my senses, the more certainly I knew I was being pulled along, simply because I couldn't possibly move to walk on my own and I could tell I wasn't laid out on something.
I vaguely remembered something under my feet exploding and sending me into the air before being thrown down into a ditch. I'd taken the worst of it to my right leg, which made sense given the searing pain there. The harder I thought, the more vividly I could remember landing in an awkward, tangled position on the hard ground, my leg bending into a grotesque angle. I'd lay there on my back for only a moment before I'd started falling unconscious. Well I've gotten laid before, but this is taking things to new extremes, I'd thought with a small note of amusement.
As I became a slight bit more oriented, I slowly pried my eyes open. I felt a strong arm around my waist holding me up and another one holding on to my arm. Between the two, I was held up off the ground. I also felt a hand, undoubtedly feminine, gently brush my hair from my face. I looked to each side to see it was the twins holding me up and to see that Abby was the one that had brushed my hair out of my eyes. She smiled in relief when she saw my eyes were open.
"Morning sleeping beauty," the Evans brother to my left chimed.
"Where are we?" I asked hoarsely.
"Cutting through the woods to get back to the rest of the team. The ditch you fell down was too steep to climb back up so we're going around and back," the other twin said, using his free hand to motion to the route we were taking.
"How are feeling?" Abby asked.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" I replied sarcastically.
"Well look on the bright side Stephen. Your leg took the worst of the fall and not your head, which is why you're already awake. There shouldn't be any serious brain damage," one of the twins informed me.
"How long was I out for?" I asked.
"Somewhere around thirty minutes. We should be back with the team in about another five," Abby answered.
I nodded and went to say something, but I got very abruptly dizzy. Pain tore through my leg and I bit back the noises of pain that sought to escape my throat. I blinked and tried to make the currently spinning world stand still, but my vision started going from shaky to black. Not a second after my eyes closed, I was unconscious again.
"I think he's waking up again…"
I heard these words as I awakened for the second time. I would know that Scottish accent anywhere. It was Nick speaking. I felt as though I was drifting through my mind, unbound by gravity. I could hear the real world, but I didn't feel remotely attached to it. Either I was still only half awake or the doctors had given me some great painkillers. Or both. Pressure rested slightly against my hand, and I assumed I was coming off of my drug induced state of lightness if I was starting to take note of my body again. I felt a small flicker of disappointment, the temporary detachment was bliss compared to the pain that had shot through my leg before I'd passed out.
"Stephen?" whispered a soft voice.
I felt a small smile pull at my lips. It was yet another voice I would know anywhere. Soft and sweet and wonderful. You must still be pretty doped up dude, you sound like a Nicholas Sparks book, I thought dazedly. Still, I couldn't resist a pang of affection when I opened my eyes and saw Abby sitting next to me, watching me intently. Worry painted her features, and then she smiled when my eyes met hers. She squeezed my hand, and I absently noted that it must have been the pressure I had been feeling earlier. She had a very firm grip on my left hand, but the tightness of her hold wasn't at all unpleasant.
"You my wake up call?" I murmured sleepily.
"If you want," she laughed, her blue eyes sparkling with mirth.
"So, how hard would it be to talk you into kissing it better? My leg isn't the only thing that's sore…" I trailed off, smiling at her suggestively.
She sighed in a mixture of what seemed like fondness and exasperation. "Don't push your luck."
I simply remained smiling as I laced our fingers together. The drugs had me completely off, but I didn't care. Something about Abby's presence was a drug of it's own sort. As intoxicating and disorienting, if not more so, than anything they could pump into me through the IV in my arm. I wish I had known, as I lay in that hospital bed, that I was on borrowed time. No, that she was on borrowed time. I could have told her how I felt. I could have stopped being such a coward and asked her out. I could have found a way to prevent what would happen all too soon. I could have done something but lay awake in that bed and waste what little time I had left with her.