I finally got around to typing this! Hooray for me! Actually, I finally found it, since it had been packed up with all my other computer stuff, but now I'm done moving and hopefully I'll have more time to finish it!!!! Well, hope you like it. Please review, and please tell me any other suggestions for the title, cause I'm not sure if I like the one I have! Thanks ya muchly!
Chapter 2: Suspended
Aina sat up from the brush and whipped dirt from her eyes. The sky was clear and blue again, there was no overhanging shadow of the suit. Her mind was a scene if muddled confusion, having hard time sorting out her thoughts. What was a suit doing out here? She pressed her back against the tree she had hit, and with a groan of pain managed to push herself up into a standing position. She tried to steady her wobbly feet enough to walk.
She made it a few yards from where she landed, and then dropped to her knees in weariness. She looked through the woods to the side of the road where her compacted limo lay steaming on the road. Was it the man they had been talking to earlier in conference with Ginias, coming to kill her and hopefully make Ginias give in to them? Where was Shiro?
"Shiro!" She yelled, looking around with wild eyes and standing back up, stumbling through the forest ahead of her.
"Oh God, Shiro!" She gasped and covered her mouth in horror.
He laid half in and half out of the wreckage the suit had caused. His legs were trapped under a heavy, rotting log, and scrap metal flown from the street lay scattered around him. Blood was draining freely from a cut on his face and it looked as if one eye was swollen shut. She ran over, ignoring the sneering pain in her legs, and knelt down beside him.
"Shiro!" she yelled. "Shiro!"
Shiro lifted one arm slightly and tried to turn over. He got half way onto his side when he fell back onto his stomach. There was a hole the size of a teacup in his chest. Aina held a hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting.
She managed to brush away some debris that covered him, and tried to use her weakened arms to roll the log off his legs, but it was to heavy and she fell back in defeat. She tugged on his arms to try to pull him out, but he cried out in pain as his shoulder dislocated.
"Oh no, Shiro, I'm sorry. Oh God, I was just trying to…" she fell next to him, shaking and holding her weeping face in her hands. He dropped his head back to the dirt with his eyes squeezed shut.
She cried for ten minutes, and nothing had changed when she stopped. Crying always made it feel better, she had spent countless hours crying, and it always made her feel better. But crying couldn't help this; Shiro was still trapped under a tree, and she had no ways of telling anyone where they were.
She looked around in the pockets of her dress. Her phone, where was her phone? She crawled through the bushes until she reached the road and stood, shaking. She started to walk forward, to find the driver, when her high-healed shoe twisted to one side and she fell back down the ditch. With a scream, she landed on her back in the dirt.
Damn it!
When she rolled over, her hand landed on something hard buried underneath the forest leaves and mud. Scrambling, she scratched it out.
The phone!
Whipping mud from the buttons, she dialed the emergency number.
Her mind still a whirling void of confusion and anger, she dropped the phone to sink in the mud and crawled back to Shiro.
* * *
When Aina opened her eyes, there was a woman's gentle face hovering beside hers, and fingers softly probing her head. She groaned and tried to turn away.
"Miss. Sakhalin, please. I'm a doctor. You have a bad cut on her head." She finished bandaging and Aina sat up quickly, her own fingers exploring her wounds.
She looked around the white washed walls and tile floored room. There was table next to the bed with a clock and a vase of flowers on it.
"Shiro?" She asked, looking around again, as if expecting him to be lying next to her.
"The boy with you? He's in the TL." Aina looked at the doctor, her face scrunched in confusion. "Testing lab," the doctor smiled.
"Is he all right? Will he be ok?"
"I can find out for you, Miss. Sakhalin" She went to the wall and pressed a blue button. A small screen appeared on the wall, and she began touching it.
Aina flinched nervously.
"Crushed under a tree? Well… surprisingly, he survived… Broken ribs, dislocated shoulder," at this, Aina turned red, "metal bit in his eye, large chest wound."
"He'll be all right?" She got out of bed while the doctor's back was turned and tested her footing.
"Yes, the TL staff is doing all they can. But it seems…" she was cut short by the flap of the doors as Aina frantically rushed to the TL.
She found the heavy metal doors labeled Testing Lab locked, and started pounding on the little slotted glass windows with the flats of her palms.
"Open this door! I am Aina Sakhalin! Please open the door! I have to see Shiro! Please, open the doors!"
By the time a face came into view from the window, Aina's shouting had attracted the attention of several hospital guards, and her voice had grown hoarse. When a woman with a round face and square glasses finally unlocked the door the let Aina in, the crowd of guards sighed and moved back to their positions.
Aina looked at the woman, "Where is Shiro?" She demanded, her usually good temper flaming in her eyes.
The room they had stepped into was not more than 20 feet wide and 25 feet long. One wall was lined with large tables covered in computers and electronics. The other walls were completely covered with long, rectangular windows, and a small metal door leading to the room beyond. Aina pressed herself up against the window and looked down into the other room.
The room was no bigger than the one she was in. The walls her white, the floor was white, and there was a fan on the ceiling. Wiring trailed from the bed in the center of the room and connected into the walls. Aina let her eyes travel the path of one of the wires, and gapped in shock.
The doctors had attached wires to his temples, arms, and chest, even the palms of his hands. They had wrapped his stomach with brownish colored bandages, which Aina though might be the medicine coming through from underneath. Both his eyes were closed, but his eyelids flickered, like the balls under them were rolling in fit-less sleep. A large black and purple bruise covered one of his eyes and down onto his cheekbone. Aina winced as if with pain from just looking at him.
"Shiro," she whispered. The woman who opened the door came up next to her with a clipboard.
"There was a metal sliver in his eye," the woman stumbled. "And… from the waist down… he… he was paralyzed."
Aina gasped, "What?!"
"From the impact of the car," she replied.
Aina turned back to the window.
"But it's not as bad as other cases. Others would have died with his injury. We think it was the pressure of air from the guerilla suit which lightened the impact of the tree before it crushed him."
Aina closed her eyes, Oh, Shiro. When she opened them, she turned to the door leading down to Shiro.
She hesitated before walking up to his bed. Despite the movements of his eyelids, he looked so peaceful. She didn't think she'd ever see him as peaceful as he looked now. She stepped up to his bed and looked down on him.
Shiro… she thought, holding back tears in her watering eyes. She reached out to take his hand, but stopped and let her arm fall back against her leg. He had never held her hand before, and it felt wrong to do so when he couldn't hold her back.
"It's my fault…"she whispered, "I… I swear… on my life… I will see you though this… oh, Shiro…" Her voice wavered and she walked stiffly from the room.
Aina sunk into the warm water and let the bubbles float around her neck. She ran a wet hand through her hair, and slicked back the bangs with water. Finally, some time to relax.
After spending a month going back and forth from the hospital, she had the stitches removed from her leg, and Shiro was doing slightly better. He was still confined to his bed because any movement of his ribs would alter their healing process and bring him right back to where he started. But he had tried several times to stand when the doctors had left. They only resulted in a crumbled heap on the floor because of his jelly-for-legs. He didn't mind the pain in his stomach or his cracked ribs, but what discouraged him the most were his paralyzed legs. He has been an extremely active person, the Federation had evidence of that, and it seemed that an accidental twist in fate made his lower body useless.
There was still a small trace of purple under his eye bandage, but the medical staff was amazed by how fast he was healing. They all said it was the transfer from space to Earth that made his body more able to cope.
Aina only had a small scar compared to all Shiro has gone through, and she felt guilty. If he hadn't thrown her from the road, she would probably be six feet under now.
She let the bar of soap slip between her fingers and fall to the bottom of the tub.
The driver hadn't been so lucky. The front end of the car had been completely crushed under the heel of guerilla suit, thus adding another stone to the graveyard. Thank God he hadn't had a family to explain the loss to.
The news of the accident of the 08th Federation MS Team's commander, and the sister of infamous Ginias Sakhalin, genius designer of the Principality of Zeon, had been in the news since Aina had left the hospital the first day. The media monitored their well-being and Aina's face had donned the front page of every newspaper on the planet. She had gotten a letter from Australia, where Norris was taking a vacation out in the bush, saying that he had heard and would try and get up to see her as soon as possible. Not knowing where else to send anything, the members of Shiro's team had sent packages and letters, saying they would try and come and visit him without being caught by their fellow Feds, since there was a controversy going on between the Feds and the Zeons over who should get Shiro.
She sunk into the bubbles further, letting the hot water loosen up her muscles. She had been moving so much in the past month, and had taken more than her share of painkillers. Several trips to the hospital everyday, dealing with the media and signing papers had led her to have stress-related headaches. It'd be so much easier if her brother could break from his schedule and come to her. But Ginias had gone to space to deal with the designs of the classified building of the Apsaras.
There was a soft tap on the bathroom door. Aina looked up.
"Telephone, Miss. Sakhalin. From the hospital."
She sighed and started to get up. "Tell them I'll be right there." She pulled on a heavy bathrobe and stood dripping on the floor.