Being Human
"Christian?"
The 1st thing he heard was a woman's voice floating around in the darkness surrounding him. It sounded as if he were underwater, as if the voice were calling him from miles and miles away.
"Christian, if you can hear me at all, can you give me a little sign?" The woman's voice was there again, floating around him in the darkness. It was a voice he did not recognize, a gentle coaxing voice in the distance. But it was not the voice he longed to hear; It was not his Ana's, his charge's voice. "Even the merest twitch of your fingers will do."
Who did this voice belong to? And why were they asking for him to twitch his fingers?
He tried to do so only to find both of his hands felt stiff and heavy. His fingers wouldn't seem to cooperate.
"Mr Grey?" That voice again. "If you can hear me at all, please-"
It felt like the hardest thing in the world but he managed. He lifted his eyelids, being brutally blinded by white fluorescent light surrounding him. He clenched his eyes shut again, recoiling away from the harsh light.
"Good job." That woman was still there. "Are you able to do that again for me?"
Bracing himself against the light, he slowly reopened his grey eyes again, this time the light not as blinding as it had been moments before. A wet sheen covered his eyes and he had to blink it away furiously before a woman came into view. She was young though he could not tell her age. Young with dark hair in a ponytail, wearing a skirt and bland light blue T-shirt. She had on a pair of medical gloves. Who was she?
"Well done," she whispered with an encouraging smile as he simply stared back at her. "I suppose you've got a lot of questions for me, but let me get a few things straight first. Firstly, my name is Betty and I'm your nurse. I'm going to be looking after you during your stay here. Secondly, you're a very lucky man."
Nurse? She was going to be looking after him during his stay? His stay where? And why was he lucky?
He closed his eyes again, thinking back hardly. All he could remember was Ana. Ana pleading for him not to go, her arms around him.
Was he back in his world, back with the counsel elders?
Opening his eyes and finally taking a brisk look around at his surroundings, he realized not. The room was completely white. A machine was beeping next to a bed he was sitting in, with tubes and strange looking things around it. A tube was even hooked to his arm, sticking to the skin in the crook of his elbow then trailing towards a bag near that machine. A clear liquid was dripping from the bag.
He opened his mouth about to ask where he was, only the oddest thing happened. He had never experienced anything like it before. His throat seemed to close over so no words got out and as he swallowed in a panic, it stung the back of his throat. The woman- this nurse Betty? - must have seen the fear gathering in his eyes as he peered at her again because she held a placating hand up to him.
"Just try to relax, OK? Let me explain what's happening." She found a chair and pulled it beside the bed, sitting. "You've been in an accident. You were brought into Emergency fifteen hours ago and you've only just woken up from being unconscious. Considering the type of accident you experienced, you're extremely lucky."
Accident?
Swallowing again and wincing at the pain, he realized he was wearing nothing but a white thing over him. No underwear, no shoes. Just some weird white thing that went down to his knees. Something covered both of his feet, while one went all the way up to his knee. It looked like some sort of padded boot.
"Your left leg is broken," the nurse went on calmly. "And you've also suffered a fractured rib. Aside from that, you'll definitely make a full recovery. You'll just need to give it some time."
A broken leg? A fractured rib? How?
"You were hit by an oncoming car," she went on as though she could read his thoughts. "You crossed the road and the car hit you. The driver was very traumatized. It was lucky the driver of the car wasn't driving any faster than he was otherwise your injuries would have been a lot more extensive. Do you remember anything of what happened?"
He shook his head briskly to show he didn't.
"Well, you're here at the Virginia Mason Hospital right now. You arrived here last night to Emergency at 10.35 pm in the evening. It's now Sunday, the next day after your accident." The woman checked her watch. "It's now currently noon."
While he understood what the nurse was telling him he did not understand how this was possible. Why was he here, right now, in the hospital? Could he truly have passed down into the Earth world? Apparently so, if this woman was seeing him right before her very own eyes. She could see him. Another person- one that was not Ana- could actually see him! How?
Christian opened his mouth as his eyes narrowed at the woman, perplexed. The words formed on his lips but his voice would not come out. The nurse seemed to recognize this.
"Here, some water might help to lubricate your vocal cords." She stood from the chair, moving to grab something. Then she was returning with a plastic cup and a straw filled with what appeared to be water. "Lean up slowly and gently to make it easier for yourself to swallow if you can," she beckoned softly. "But try to limit movement in your legs."
He tilted his head forward and then she was assisting him, moving the cup closer. She helped slip the straw between his lips and Christian stared at her as he sucked his cheeks in, guiding the water up from the straw into his mouth. The first mouthful he swallowed was a Godsend.
Sighing contently through his nostrils as the cool water flowed down his throat, making that sting disappear, he sucked in another mouthful then sank his head back down gently. The nurse sat the cup with the straw near the bed, turning to look at him again as he swallowed the mouthful down.
He brought out his tongue, wetting his dry lips as the woman did something else, checking something on that odd beeping machine.
"You..." He started, his voice rough and strained. The nurse glanced at him as he cleared his throat gruffly. He tried again, "You... can see me?"
His eyebrows furrowed as the woman appeared as though she was trying not to laugh. "Of course I can see you, Christian." She reached out, gently brushing her fingers against his knuckles and along his hand. Christian felt his heart plummet at the feeling of her fingers touching his skin. She could feel him, too? She could actually see and touch him, yet she were not his Ana? "What makes you ask that?"
The look on Ana's face as he left her tore at his heart painfully. He'd left her upset and he had to find her. He had to show her that somehow, he was here. Somehow by some miraculous chance, a miraculous turn of fate, he was here. He had crossed over into the Earth world.
"Where's Ana?" he whispered gutterally, searching for her wildly. There was a small window outside the room but the white blinds were closed. "I need to find Ana and show her I'm here." His eyes flew to the nurse again desperately as he slipped his hand out from beneath hers. He reached over, grabbing her hand instead strongly, "Can you take me to Ana?"
"Ana? Um, I'm sorry sir but I don't think I can-"
An unfamiliar emotion lashed at him, making him feel hot. "- I need to find Ana!" Before he knew it, the words spilled out of his mouth, harsh and desperate. "She's my charge and I left her upset! I made a pledge, a commitment to her! I need to-" The machine started beeping through his words frantically.
"Sir, please, you need to calm down. Right now we have to focus on your recovery."
No, no it was not good enough. He needed to see Ana and he needed to see her now. He needed to make her see so that he could make her feel better. It was his duty after all.
Agitated, he grit his teeth, his chest heaving as he tried to get up from the bed. At his movement, the nurse Betty was immediately off on a tyrant.
"Christian, Mr Grey, please! You can't move-"
He learned his lesson when he tried to kick his feet off the bed, ignoring her. A harsh groan escaped through his teeth as he jolted back against the bed, a sharp instant stabbing pain radiating through both his legs as well as the center of his ribs. His eyes grew wet and moist as he hissed in agony as well as shock. Pain was not something he had experienced before, certainly not a pain belonging to him and him alone.
He was so used to feeling Ana's own feelings, Ana's own pain and feelings of insecurity or rejection or hurt. He was not prepared for this.
"See, Mr Grey?" The nurse muttered gently, treating him as if he were a wild animal on the verge of becoming dangerous. "Please, you need to listen to me. I understand you are very confused and frustrated right now, not to mention desperate to find this... this Ana person? But you really do need to remain in that bed until your body heals."
There suddenly came a knock on the door and the nurse glanced towards the sound nervously.
"You have visitors. Your parents."
Parents?
"They care about you a lot. They were even in here 1st thing last night while you were in Emergency. Do you feel ready to see them?" She may as well have been speaking in another language.
He did not have parents. The concept of parents were something for the Earth world, for people like Ana who were born into this world, not for him.
As the nurse strode to the door, he tried to listen as she spoke to two people outside it. From what he could make sense of, it was a man and a woman seeking to enter the room to see him. What had she just referred to it as? Parents?
Suddenly the door swung further open. Christian watched as a woman came barreling into the room, her eyes wet and red from what appeared to be crying. A hand was clutched against her chest as if she were frightened of what she were about to see and as her eyes focused on him sitting there, in the bed, they slowly roamed down to the strange boot wrapped over his foot.
"Oh, Christian," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Thank God you're all right! When I heard the news last night I was so petrified that I was never going to see you again!"
All he could simply do was sit there uncomfortably and stare as the woman began crying. And then he stiffened, watching the woman warily as she approached the bed slowly, eyeing him again. His heart jolted in surprise with what she did next.
As if she were losing her composure, without warning the woman bent down and flung herself at him, wrapping an arm around his neck carefully while he felt her smooth warm cheek rest against the side of his. She smelled faintly of perfume, yet it was not overly strong to him. Oddly, he found the smell strangely welcoming and calm.
"Carrick and I were so worried when you didn't make it to dinner last night," she carried on, sniffing and weeping over him. "Mia and Elliot wanted to come in but I told them to call in another night once you're feeling better, baby." Mia? Elliot? "No doubt you'll be needing all the rest you can get."
As the woman shook against him, he blinked past her to notice a man standing in the doorway as well. He appeared the same age as the woman, his hair neatly slicked back, salt and pepper grey. He looked red in the face, as though he had been crying earlier himself but Christian noticed the man was restraining himself now in trying to keep strong.
"Son, you worried us half to death," the man muttered softly.
Son? He couldn't possibly be their son, could he? He was here solely for Ana. He was put on this Earth for one purpose and that purpose alone was his charge, wasn't it?
The instance he spoke, the woman shoved herself away from Christian, leaving him be. He could feel some of her tears staining and wetting around his jaw.
Glancing between the two, he watched as the woman smiled faintly at the man, her face still red from sobbing. Then the two exchanged a hug, the pair of them inhaling deeply in relief.
Observing their reaction, although he did not know them Christian could only recognize one thing.
Whoever these two people were, they clearly loved him.
...
The woman and man stuck around for over an hour, speaking to him, explaining who they were and answering his questions as much as they could. They were patient and incredibly understanding over him not knowing them or recognizing them, surprisingly.
Apparently the woman's name was Grace while the man's name was Carrick. They had adopted him at a young age- or so they thought. Mia and Elliot were the other children they had adopted- his siblings.
It did not make much sense to Christian but thinking too much about it was now beginning to make his head feel funny and oddly achy.
Eventually Nurse Betty interrupted to tell the pair it was time to leave. They both stood from their chairs and Christian was left stunned again as Grace approached him, only to cup both sides of his face in her hands as she leaned over the bed. Her face was disarmingly stern.
"Don't you ever put us through this situation ever again, do you understand?" she half shouted yet he also heard a strange undercurrent of tenderness there beneath the surface for him as well. "I very nearly died at the news when I got the phone call! Promise me you'll be careful next time, won't you?"
He could only thank being around Ana for as long as he had to be able to gauge and comprehend what the woman was feeling. If it weren't for learning from his young charge over the years on what true emotion had looked like, Christian wouldn't have understood at all. The woman Grace was seeking reassurance from him as she gently stroked his cheeks.
"I promise," he assured her weakly. The laugh she gave him while bending down to kiss his cheek affectionately left him feeling even stranger.
"Good boy. We'll come and check on you sometime tomorrow, OK? Maybe I'll even sneak you in some of your favorite foods so you don't have to put up with bland hospital food, huh?" Grace winked at him before leaving the room. The man Carrick nodded as he left the room after her.
Christian stared after them, unsure of what to think.
But becoming attuned to the feelings of others thanks to his young charge, he thought he could see that the pair were sincere and loving. Why they were mistaking him for their son, he was not entirely sure. However he liked it. Whoever these two were, he realized he liked them a lot.
Alone now left in silence in the room, he leaned back against the pillow, allowing his eyes to close again. A dull ache spread across his heart, a hollow melancholy feeling that had nothing at all to do with the twinges of pain in his lower ribs and his legs.
Nice and as filled with love that these people evidently were, he was still left feeling something lacking. He knew immediately what that missing piece was. They were not her. They were not his favorite person in the world.
With his eyes shut, it made it easier to think of her. To see her again; Her face, her smile, those bright blue eyes of hers. It made it easier to hear her; Her soft, low-pitched laughter. How she'd snort occasionally if he got her laughing hard enough. Her breathlessness every time he'd stroke and tickle the smooth soles of her feet. He felt his lips twitch fondly into a smile at the thought of her.
Reopening his eyes, he dipped his chin down low, searching and finding those marks on his chest. There they were, still as they always were, three round marks- three scars of his initiation, his pledge of loyalty to his charge.
Do you, Christian Grey, accept Anastasia Rose Steele to be your charge in the Earth world?
Will you, Christian Grey, die for her if the cause was necessary?
Will you, Christian Grey, watch over her from this day forward, ensuring she is free from pain and suffering? You willingly give your life over to protect hers?
Even now, he was still committed to be true to his word. Someday, somehow... he would find her.
Though he did not understand it he had clearly crossed over into the Earth world himself, into a visible body; This was made clear by the fact that others had seen him and were able to touch him rather than his Ana being the sole one that could.
Also the pain. The feelings of pain that he hadn't felt before while being around Ana- pains surfacing around his body that were clearly his own and not Ana's own personal feelings secondhand.
He felt all too... human.
...
Being human was a larger awakening than Christian had anticipated.
He'd fallen asleep, having dozed off for a while in the hospital bed, only to have awoken to a horrible nagging feeling in his lower abdomen. It was a tight heavy pressure that he had not experienced before in his other life. Because the nurse was not there, he had tried to drift back off to sleep only to be brutally awoken barely fifteen minutes later to the horrid sensation of something warm and gushing being pulled out from him.
He had called out to the nurse Betty, only for her to calmly tell him what had happened.
"It's OK," she'd reassured him, taking her seat again. "We had to install a catheter last night in case you urinated. Given your situation where your legs are in the state they are now and it's not possible for you to move out of bed, you're likely to need to wear it for a while."
Apparently a catheter, as she'd named it, was some sort of tube they'd inserted to remove urine from his bladder into a bag. The nurse said she'd empty it every four hours- something that baffled Christian. Urinating was not something he had to do before. Nor was eating, for that matter.
He also learned how annoying it could be to go for too long without eating if you were from the Earth world. His stomach had started growling and vibrating with a painful feeling, which had resulted in the nurse going somewhere to retrieve him something to eat. Eating was just as strange. He'd seen his charge eat, if course, but experiencing it for himself was a different matter entirely.
It took a while to get used to putting something in his mouth only to chew it into pulp with his own teeth. Swallowing it down after tasting all the different exotic flavors available in the Earth world were just as bewildering. Now he thought he had better appreciation and understanding into what his young charge went through.
But enjoyable as eating was and tasting the different flavors, something was always missing; something never far from the back of his mind as he settled into the routine of becoming human in the Earth world.
The instance he was allowed to get up from the bed... the instance his bones had recovered and his ribs were no longer sore... he was determined to start searching to find her.
His Ana. His most favorite person in the world.
This was just a rather introduction chapter to human Christian, hoping you won't mind. thanks so much for being so kind, your kind words and support really touches me as someone who feels not all that confident in writing. it really does inspire me to write so thank you! love to know your thoughts on this one? excited for ana and christian to meet again? any problems with writing or phrasing, you are welcome to point it out as i appreciate any advice.
as a question regarding the plot should i let ana immediately meet christian again or should i let it linger in anticipation a bit? ;)