A blur.
What happened Tucker?
He'd awakened.
Not sure how long.
Seconds?
Minutes?
Hours?
Danny and Sam.
What'd you do Tucker?
Maybe he said something?
Shaken their shoulders, sides, bodies.
Yeah.
That'd happened.
He was sure of that.
Carefully.
Careful not to touch spots of injuries.
Checked pulses.
Pulse?
Yeah.
There'd been pulses.
More concern on getting help.
Couldn't remember doing that.
Was just there.
Danny's parents had gotten back.
He'd never seen faces so white before.
Definitely never on them.
Did you know what you looked like Tucker?
That wasn't important.
Were you in any pain Tucker?
That wasn't important!
Danny. Sam.
They were.
Jazz was there too.
He couldn't recall when she showed up.
Just, she was there.
He knew that.
Okay. What happened next Tucker?
They'd all been in the basement.
Back?
Filled. Lots of people.
Hands pushing at him.
Danny. Sam. Focus on them.
He went with.
Wanting. Needing. To stay near. To know.
Bile a constant feeling in his throat.
Then, or now too? Tucker.
But he couldn't, wouldn't remove them from his sight.
He had to see them. Know they were okay. Breathing.
Would they be okay?
Lights shined in front of his eyes.
Poking and prodding.
At him.
Wrong.
Them.
They should focus on them.
Danny's parents going on. Back and forth with the doctors.
Screaming. Sam's parents delaying, interrupting, cursing at Danny's parents.
His parents fretting over him, eyes wide in worry.
Tucker. It's been hours. You need to let them look over you.
He was fine.
Your parents and the doctors and maybe take a real look at yourself—
Fine.
Fine, fine, fine!
But Danny. And Sam.
I know you're worried about your friends Tucker, but perhaps—
He'd yelled.
At Sam's parents.
Crying.
Focus on them.
They'd all been stupid.
Let Danny's parents help.
Danny and Sam.
They were going to be fine, right?
I don't know Tucker.
Most of the doctors and nurses and attention was on them.
A few had attention on him.
Annoying him.
That's their job Tucker. To look after people who've been injured or hurt, sometimes sick, to keep an eye—
He was fine.
He would be okay.
As long as Danny and Sam came out of this.
As long as they would wake up.
Get up.
Smile.
Leave the hospital.
Enjoy the rest of the summer again.
Grounded.
He could handle that.
Wait until school started.
As long as he saw them walk out of the hospital.
Summer had a whole jarring catastrophe to mar the joys of summer freedom.
But it'd all be okay.
They'd be fine.
Fine.
There is a certain smell. A certain blandness of features. Several slap-dash pieces of color that only served to amplify the drabness. The stark and bright and open and wide filled with slow cloying horror. That particular kind of lights. The warm smiles, meaning it, but never completely rid you of the fact of where you were. Numbness growing to any attempt to soothe and calm and assure and lighten up the day.
Day after day after day.
Watching and prodding and checking.
Not so much on him anymore. He'd been checked out. Told to take it easy. Say if he felt anything off. Expressed concern on keeping an eye on the amount he ate. At how clammy he felt, his temperature. Like they had room to talk with the chill filling up the hospital and their own long sleeves. As for his current hat?
His own hat had fallen off at some point during the accident, the energy managing to do damage to the wiry ends. The beret he'd worn every day since his birthday last fall wasn't going to cut it with his head practically bald now. And hadn't been able to turn down the girl from the cancer area of the hospital, Yvette, who had insistently given him one of her big stocking caps decorated up in tiny pom-poms to him.
Yvette went for a roll around, twice a day, traversing the entire hospital and apparently, according to her mom who always came with, had gotten a crush on him. She was nine. A caring little cute thing of a chatterbox, full of all the hospital gossip, and far too perfectly aware of her own morality. At least he could usually sidetrack her in talk of technology. She loved hearing and finding out and figuring out how machines worked.
He wondered what Danny and Sam's reactions would be to the hats Yvette had given to them.
Day after day.
Sam's parents and Danny's parents usually coming in and out during visiting. Never getting along. Attempts to not come at the same time had long past. Both their parents came whenever. Jazz abnormally quiet, never even trying to referee it. Just came right to the room when her and Danny's parents came in. Sitting on his one side. Sam's Nana was usually here with him. When his parents were not. Whether at work or walking other parts of the hospital.
The only time he'd not been here with Nana, he had persistently made sure she wouldn't leave their sides while he couldn't be there, was when his mom had dragged him to a different doctor.
His eye doctor. Dr. Carter. Who had general feelings of 'huh' about him. Well, his eyes.
Eyesight changed and it's not like his had been the worst.
But it was weird to not feel the settling weight on his nose and ears. To not have the wide frames around his eyes. His eyes, which had always been turquoise in being between blue and green, suddenly seemed to look bluer without the glasses.
He'd always thought that turquoise color of his eyes nice, something special. But perhaps it had been the lighting and refraction from his glasses and any mirror he'd been looking in. Or maybe his eyes just looked plan strange without the glasses on and they'd always had more blue than he wanted to believe. Come on.
Turquoise sounded better than blue. Electric blue perhaps. Sky blue he guessed they could be called. But electric blue fit more and sounded a little bit better to him.
But turquoise. It'd matched up with his astrological sign's color and gem.
Something Danny had pointed out when they were younger.
Something he'd never forgotten.
Besides, Danny was the one with sky blue eyes. With all his love of space and sky.
And for all he missed looking through his eyeglasses and seeing turquoise, Sam was the one with the really stand out eyes.
He stared at the two beds, machines beeping and monitoring his best friends laying in them. Nana sat at his side with a motorcycle magazine. He could hear an argument growing again out in the hallway. Parents clashing and the medical personal attempting to handle them. Jazz gave him and Nana a feeble wave as she entered the room.
What he wouldn't give to see Danny and Sam's eyes open up.
Danny's parents came one at a time now. Never at the same time.
He'd overheard enough to pick up why.
As did Jazz, whose fists clenched with the topic came up and turned her face to the side, tears rolling down her face.
The Fenton Portal was working.
Great.
For all they spoke and talked of it, trying to suss out causes and readings, what had happened, specifics to the accident, ideas tossed out with the doctors and nurses.
But the excitement they had on it working was in the undertones.
Their work, he got it.
But still.
It didn't exactly help the explosive relationship between them and Sam's parents right now.
Despite the readings and collaboration with the hospital staff apparently leading to some promising things done to help Danny and Sam.
This old college buddy of Danny's parents left him thinking of an oily used car salesman. Way too attentive to Danny's mom. Which. Ew. Gross. Jack didn't seem to notice, far too glad to see the old college buddy and full of exuberant hugs. Maybe the guy had always been like that. Maddie was pretty enough. For a mom. The guy was probably used to lots of pretty girls around him.
Dude was rich.
Really rich.
Rich enough to impress Sam's parents, forcing them to not argue while he was there.
Vlad Masters had more than enough money to cover all the costs.
For his college buddies' kid. As well as Danny's friends.
Big sigh of relief from his parents. So the old college buddy couldn't be too terrible. Even if he was kind of disconcerting.
And filled with odd questions. About Danny and Sam. About him.
Of course they had acne. Of course he had acne. He was a teenager. It was par for the course.
Why it might glow was beyond him for a question. Other than maybe due to the nature of the accident. And that this old college buddy had been studying the same as Danny's parents. Had an accident with a smaller and earlier prototype version of the Portal way back then.
Apparently he'd been clammy and colder after that accident. Brought up a few things that lined up. Like hair. Others that didn't line up. Eyesight. But that was not out of the normal for a kid.
Dr. Carter went 'huh'. But even said it wasn't that weird. He'd heard of it before. Had some other kids who'd had the same thing happen. With eyesight suddenly changing. One girl, he said, had read the classroom board fine and then after a weekend was squinting to make out the letters. So a 'huh' but not out of the normal.
Unlike him getting used to being a bit clammy and colder now. Not just in the chillier hospital.
Then they guy went over to speak with the doctors, as though he'd been the one talking to them the whole time.
Oily.
But he guessed Vlad Masters, being as rich as he was, kind of called for that sort of feeling. And the man had history and knowledge that could be helpful. As well as money cover costs.
He didn't like it here.
That was an understatement.
He never wanted to come back again.
Every day.
Sick and hurt people.
In and out.
In and not out.
He shoved the dark red stocking cap lined with pom-poms further on his face, incasing most of his head, wetness steadily filling up the thick knitted material.
Yvette hadn't been by yesterday afternoon.
Or this morning.
He'd asked a nurse. Jeannie.
First time asking about anything other than the two she'd come in to check.
Yvette had taken a turn for the worse yesterday and died in the middle of the night.
Little cute Yvette was gone.
Gone.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck this place.
He hated hospitals.
There was no word in any language to cover his feelings about hospitals.
He was never going back in one.
Ever.