The Articulate One
By: AsTheWheelWills
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't own any of them. Not Fly, or Bec, or Heath. Not even Matt. Only in my sweet sweet delusions.
"Matt?"
Matt began to stir, opening his eyes slightly and squinting as the first rays of light hit them. What time was it? Had he fallen asleep again? He looked out the window and saw it was dark, a little past eleven if he had bothered to check his watch. It was the hospital lighting overhead that was causing such pain to his unadjusted eyes. He looked to the door to see who had addressed him. Fiona "Fly" Watson stood in the doorway, arms crossed, looking at him worriedly.
"Hey." he greeted her, stretching his legs out from the chair he sat in. "Hey yourself." she smiled sitting down beside him. "I think you should head home Matt. I'll watch him for a little while." "No, I'm good Fly. I'll stay." She rolled her eyes. "Oh come on Matt. You can't wait here forever. Besides your exhausted. You haven't had a good nights sleep in two days, apart from the little naps you've taken in the chairs." Matt opened his mouth to protest, but his own body betrayed him , forcing him to yawn. Fly grinned, satisfied her point was proven.
Matt looked toward the hospital bed he sat beside for the first time. Heath, his best friend lay there, unconscious. Matt had decided the day the accident had happened that he would wait by Heath's side until he woke up. Well he had gone for training of course, but he couldn't miss that without violating his contract with Solar Blue. Luckily it was Spring Break as well, so school commitments hadn't held him back. That's what best friends did, by his reckoning.
"I dunno Fly, I really don't wanna..." he wasn't sure what to say. So much for being the articulate one. Everything was in a mess in his head. Had it been two days? It felt like more. "Matt, I'm sure he'll be just fine if you go home to take a kip for a few hours. I promise I'll call you if anything happens okay?" He realised she was rubbing his forearm gently, and from the look on her face, it was clearly from concern. Surely he wasn't taking these circumstance as bad to warrant the worry in her eyes.
"Simmo?" Matt asked. "It's alright. I asked his permission, he'll let me stay here, provided you go home. So go. You're not his only friend Matt." She smiled and moved her hand onto the armrest of her chair. Matt sighed slightly, then nodded. He got up from the chair slowly, groaning from the aches in his joints. The things were not meant for sleeping in. "Seeya later then." He walked out of the door of Heath's private room, out into the super clean corridors of the hospital.
Matt ordinarily would have found the walk home easy, maybe five minutes tops at a walk. Even in the dark , maybe seven minutes would be normal. A few months back he might have got lost, but not now. But tonight his mind was completely elsewhere. He kept making wrong turns, ending up in the midst of a housing estate. Eventually he had found his way back on course, but the result was he was almost back where he had started, just a few steps away from the hospital. He was half tempted to re-enter but he could visualize Fly's reaction if he had and he began making his way back to the house again.
His head was replaying the events of that day, two days ago apparently when Heath had his accident. He had been the midst of catching a large wave on their one day a week off. He had hurt his ankle and Simmo had told him to take it easy for a few days, but Matt had begged him to go surfing with him, and Heath, being a good friend had agreed. So the wave had came crashing down on top of him, more than likely because of his injury, and his board came crashing down with him.
He hadn't attached it to either ankle, firstly because he was showing off, trying to prove his own stupid courage to Matt, secondly because one was already hurt, and he didn't want to screw up the other if he came down the wrong way off a wave. And somehow under the water Heath had gotten hit on the head, real hard, presumably by the wave crashing the board onto his skull. So it was all Matt's fault. He was to blame. Heath would have never been out surfing if Matt hadn't asked him to.
Matt couldn't even explain to himself the pain that filled him at knowing that, and the regret. A torrent of remorse, filling his being was the best way he could think to. And yet that didn't even come close. And there was more. More feelings, and these ones he couldn't even explain to himself. Just a weird sort of emotion, that he couldn't put a name to, underneath the guilt...
He just missed Heath he reasoned. Missed talking to him, missed surfing with him, missed the stupid jokes, even the stupid psychic power he claimed to have, the feeling he said he had whenever something bad was going to happen. That didn't help much that day. Missed seeing him smile... What? Matt snapped himself out of the thought. What was that supposed to mean? He found himself wondering.
He looked at his surroundings, suddenly drawn from his thoughts. Crap, am I lost again?
He had found his way back home eventually, by accidentally stumbling onto the beach and making his way from there.He had made a point of not even thinking of anything to do with Heath, hard as it was as he made his way back to the houseAnd yet his mind skirted across the subject, much to his dismay. He would find himself half way through thoughts before he knew what he was doing like Why would I miss his- and would stop himself. He would just tell himself that Heath was his best friend, and that he was worried. He just wanted Heath to wake up, as he had assured himself that he would, and then everything could go back to normal.
As he reached the door, he shuffled through his pockets, trying to find the key. His fingers eventually gripped the cool metal in his jacket pocket, but just as he raised it to let himself in, the door was swung open Squinting for the second time that night from light, he saw Simmo's smiling face greeting him. "Guys! He's here." He called, then winked at Matt and walked off without another word. Matt was left pondering that for a moment, as he entered the building. His question was quickly answered as Perri came thundering down the stairs and practically threw herself atop of him in a hug. "Oh my god Matt! You had us so worried."
Matt noticed the others had swiftly followed Perri and swiftly began to blush as Edge gave him the thumbs up, gently pushing Perri off him. "Why?" He asked looking at her frankly. Peri had a tendency to over react to things like this."I was only at the hospital." "Yeah, and you've completely ignored the rest of us at training, and haven't actually spoken to anyone in two days." Anna smiled , reaching him. "Yeah you had us dead worried that you were depressed mate." Edge grinned. "And before you even try it, what happened to Heath was not your fault." Bec stood half way down the stairs.
The group spent another ten minutes reassuring Matt that he had no part to play in Heath's current state, their attempts largely falling on deaf ears, before Deb chased them all back up to bed. Edge had of course fallen asleep almost immediately, but Matt just lay there in his bottom bunk bed, tossing and turning, making his best attempt at falling asleep, but failing miserably. He just couldn't. At least sleeping in those uncomfortable hospital chairs felt like a penance, and subsided his guilt enough to allow him to sleep, but lying here in his own bed while Fly held the vigil felt wrong.
Why she had decided to relieve him of his post, he wasn't sure, and he pondered it a while. He came to the most obvious conclusion that Fly must like Heath and when he came to that conclusion, suddenly he resented Fly. I said I'd stay with him. I wanted to stay with him, and she made me leave. He doesn't like her back anyway, maybe I should tell her that. That wasn't true, he admitted to himself. He did think Heath liked Fly even more than he let on, which was quite a lot. And for some reason, admitting that made him dislike Fly even more. Wait what am I saying? I like Fly. Not in that way, but I like her. Why shouldn't I like her if Heath does? And suddenly Matt recognised the emotion, thinly veiled behind his sudden dislike of Fly. Jealousy. But why am I jealous of-?
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a low thud. For a moment he thought it might be Edge but it sounded to distant. And there it was again. He realised that it must be coming from the front door. Slowly raising himself from his bed, he decided to go see who it was that was visiting at - he checked the green dials of his alarm clock- 1:45 in the morning. After all he didn't see the point in another person rousing themselves when he was already up.