A/N: Hey everyone. So this one-shot is a bit different than the previous ones in the series. No Thranduil and Legolas in person this time around, only referenced for one thing. But it's necessary to the overall saga. So tell me what you all think. I love the support I've received so far. Thank you!
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JR
Waking Up
It seemed as if the pain would never end.
Eyes closed, she could hear beeping around her that quickly picked up as she realized that there would be no beeping in the Healing Halls. There would only be beeping in the modern world with its machinery, its monitors.
Gasping as she realized where she was, she struggled to sit up only to find she had no strength. Someone yelled for a doctor and she heard the squeaking of rubber-soled shoes on polished floors. "You're safe." A soft voice tried to break through her panic. "You're back in the UK."
Stilling, she took a deep breath and tried to open her eyes. The nurse must have seen her panic a moment later and the reason why because he explained with the same even tones. "Your eyes are bandaged right now. Just a precaution the doctor said." Setting about straightening the wires, tubes, and sheets that she had set askew, the calm soothing voice of the nurse went on. "The doctor will explain more when she gets here. But I can tell you what happened if you like."
She couldn't even move her head to nod, it hurt so much. Like her skull had been split in half and an entire side of her body had been roasted over flames.
"Let me as you a few questions first, alright?" He asked, her scrambled brain trying to remember where his accent had come from automatically. She had always been good with accents. "You have a tube down your throat at the moment so we'll have to be a bit creative until it can be removed."
A hand slid under the one that didn't hurt. "When I get to the correct answer you squeeze my hand, yeah?" She squeezed. "What's your name? The letter it starts with please." The nurse began sounding letters off and when he got to the letter C Caelann squeezed. "Good. Next letter." And so she spelled out her first name. Then the last until her head throbbed and her hand shook in the nurse's hold.
Finally, the doctor came in and, once the nurse told her that she seemed to be all there mentally, told her what the damage was. Concussion, shrapnel to the right knee, and partial thickness burns over more than fifty percent of her body. She had been in an explosion. Luckily she had only been caught by the flash so the doctor was hopeful for her recovery. But she would most likely not be returning to combat.
Even when her skin healed and scarred, which it would the doctor had informed her bluntly, her knee would never heal enough to send her back to her field hospital. Even with the best physio and even if she put her everything into it. It was highly unlikely. Doctor speak for "don't get your hopes up, it's never going to happen" if she had ever heard it.
It had taken days for the swelling of her trachea and esophagus to go down enough that the breathing and feeding tubes could be removed. And even then she had needed a liquid diet. If she ever saw another milkshake or liquefied soup it would be too soon.
The shrinks were next. And, while she didn't tell them everything about her life in the other world, they did insist that she had just dreamed it up. Fine, she stopped talking about anything that they didn't already know. She talked about the blast, she talked about her life before, she framed everything else as a dream and let them think she was "healing" from her trauma.
In all honesty after years with Thranduil, she had worked through any "issues" long ago. Elves weren't very good with mental healing, preferring to go west and heal in Valinor. But she wasn't an elf. She had raged, had wept, had bargained alone. Then sought out others when she was ready and learned to live again. Learned to love again. But that had been in another world that her human therapists didn't believe existed, so she was at square one with them.
So be it.
"Caelann, have you started making any friends since you've been back?"
"I'm meeting someone for coffee as soon as this appointment is over."
The therapist blinked in surprise. "Oh? Well good then." Quickly scribbling a note, they looked up again. "You had mentioned that you were thinking about moving back to the highlands. Have you decided on it?"
"I close on a cottage next week." She answered. "Which reminds me, I'll need a referral to a therapist up there if ye want me to continue with weekly appointments."
Blinking in surprise again the therapist, whose name she could never remember through sheer lack of interest, shook her head. "You've made remarkable progress. I think we can cut back to monthly appointments as long as you don't have any relapses and keep up with your medications. I will get you the name of a colleague though."
The therapist in Scotland was much more sensible. He met with her twice, pronounced her as well adjusted as could be under the circumstances, and sent her on her way with the knowledge that if she needed to talk, his door was open to her.
She didn't.
It was the highlands themselves that brought more peace and healing than anything else. And writing about Thranduil and Legolas. Every day she wrote until her fingers ached from it and still she kept going. She wrote about how much she missed them. About her days walking through the wilds until her leg screamed in agony. About her nights dreaming about being in her husband's arms. About her wishes and hopes. Anything and everything filled the pages.
She wrote when she stopped in her walks. She wrote before she got up in the morning and after she lay down again. Before meals found her fingers red and throbbing from holding a pen. She had even taken to drawing their faces in the margins, although she would never have Thranduil's talent for it.
She camped out overnight more than once and let the wildness creep into her soul and somewhere, between here and there and somewhere else, she found herself waking up again. Learning to live again. Fighting to heal again.
"Thank you, Este." She whispered into the wind one morning, staring out at the sunrise from a mountain top. "For helping me heal again." She forced a deep breath into her strained lungs and stretched out her bum leg on a convenient rock. "Please watch over Thranduil and Legolas. Elves aren't as resilient as the sons of men."
She let the air out slowly, and reached into her small pack, pulling out a thermos of strong tea and a square sausage sandwich wrapped in a cloth, as she settled in to watch the sky lighten with the dawn. "Keep an eye on them for me until I can do it myself."
Far away, Este smiled a kind smile hearing the prayer of thanks and the request. "Of course, child." She replied back, gathering up the last of her herbs for the morning. "I always have. I always will."