... Hi? I'm sorry again for not updating sooner. Life kind of got in the way. I hope, the next update will come sooner and I'm sure it will. I really only need to figure out whose perspective it'll be from. Not an easy task, let me tell you!
Anyways. I hope everyone's well and that someone's still reading this story. For those of you who have reviewed and have continued to do so for most of this story: Thanks so much! It really means the world!
Without further ado, let's start the chapter.
Disclaimer: Now, when I said "Life got in the way" I didn't mean that I had suddenly gained any kinds of rights to the whole setting and series. Same disclaimer as always. Not mine, no money, yadda yadda...
Waiting. The hours tick by slowly, seconds stretch into days, minutes stretch into years, moments into decades. And all the while hoping. Hoping that the next instance the waiting will be over. Hoping that, if I only stare hard enough at his face, his eyes will open.
There are many different types of waiting. There's the kind of waiting you do, when you know someone is going to call on you soon. Everything is ready and prepared, the only thing that is missing is the person that was supposed to have shown up ten minutes ago. This kind of waiting leaves you annoyed. Annoyance directed at the person but also at yourself, because you hate to admit that you've become one of those overly punctual and proper people who care about such things as being ten minutes late. What's ten minutes anyway?
Then there's the kind of waiting that happens when a loved one was meant to contact you days ago and despite telling them a million times that they "better not forget to send a letter." you haven't received even a note. This kind of waiting leaves you apprehensive, but also sure that everything must be alright. No news is good news!, they say and it's true.
Another kind of waiting is the one when you know you're going to see your love soon. This is by far the most wonderful kind of waiting. It leaves you slightly warm throughout your whole body with a flutter in you stomach and your heart rate increased, you palms sweating and yourself constantly checking that your hat is still precisely where you want it to be. I had not experienced this kind of waiting in a while. When I tried to think back to the last time I had experienced it, his face swirled through my head. It must have been a few years ago, shortly after the fair, when I had not known how to behave around him after I had so carelessly rejected him.
Everything always evolves around him… Why had I only understood this now? Why had I only now acknowledged that every moment, every instance of my recent life could be traced back to him? Why had I only now become aware of how his opinion meant the most to me; of how his presence in a room instantly calmed me; of how, in a sea full of laughing people, his small and vague smile was the only thing my eyes focused on, the only thing that mattered? My whole existence depended on him and I, stupid as I am, had only realised this now.
Which lead me to the last kind of waiting. This kind of waiting is the most dreaded. There is nothing endearing about it, nothing nice and nothing annoying. In the strict sense, you would wish for it to be annoying because the existence of annoyance naturally excludes a certain degree of graveness in a situation. There was no lack of graveness right now.
The kind of waiting I was experiencing was the one in which you are counting the heartbeats until Death decides to loosen its grasp on someone.
When we had arrived at the hospital and my eyes landed on him immediately, my heart stopped beating. Had I not been sure that it was not very likely, I would have insisted it stopped for a whole minute. Air quickly entered my lungs and stayed there, my feet refused to move another step and my arms froze next to my body in mid motion. I was completely and utterly shocked.
The next moment, I found myself right next to him, frantically checking his pulse points, searching, searching for any sign of life inside his body.
He cant' be alive., I thought. People who are alive don't look like this. But I refused to believe that he could be anything but. He simply had to be alive. I needed him to be alive. I needed him!
When my fingers finally registered a weak pulse, the breath that I had sucked in when I entered the room, finally left my lungs again. It was faint, but undeniably there.
Later on, I became aware of how warm he was. Had I been less shocked and more observant I would have immediately been able to come to the conclusion that he could not be … dead. I wasn't though and therefore, tears started streaming down my face as soon as the never in my fingertips send the information to my brain that there was a pulsing motion beneath his skin.
From this moment on, my eyes refused to leave his face.
For six days, he slipped in and out of consciousness. The first time he woke up was two days after I had first come to the hospital. I had since tried to reduce his fever by bathing his face, hands and arms and as much of his chest as I dared, which wasn't much, given that we weren't in private. His fever refused to break though and every time I woke up from dreaded sleep that my body demanded against my explicit desire, I was sure that he must have died on me during the minutes or hours I had not been keeping vigil over him. When I woke from one of those short sleeping sequences and my eyes sought out his face to check for breathing sounds and motions, I startled when I was met by his grey ones. For two solid minutes we just stared at each other. Finally, after what felt like years, the corners of his mouth lifted and he smiled one of his small smiles that I hadn't been aware of missing so much.
"Isobel.", he simply said and his voice sounded hoarse and dry but I didn't care because he was speaking which meant that he would get better, right?
"Richard.", I answered and tried to smile, but my body was so tired and exhausted that my facial muscles failed to cooperate properly. He didn't seem to mind.
"Are you thirsty?", I asked before immediately berating myself. Of course he is!
When I tried to reach for a some water, his voice stopped me.
"Have I died?", he asked. It was a good thing, too that my hand had not reached the glass yet, for I would have let it drop. I gaped at him.
"Pardon me?" My voice had climbed up about twenty octaves.
"Never mind. It's nice to see you.", he shrugged before he closed his eyes again.
"Richard, wait!" I tried to get him to drink something, to stay alert but he had already fallen back to sleep.
The next time he woke, he didn't recognise me and kept asking for his dog, Annie. When I told him that he had no dog, he answered with "You're a very kind lady and I appreciate you being here, but since I don't know you, how could you possibly know whether I have a dog? I've had Annie ever since I was five." I didn't point out to him, that Annie still being alive was beyond possible given his age and the general life expectancy of dogs.
Similar things happened every day. Sometimes, he acknowledged me but more often than not he didn't. I was slowly loosing hope. His fever continued to stay high and each time he woke, he seemed more delirious.
Only once did I think about my husband. It was during one of his nightmares, which he had frequently. I often tried to shake him out of them but I usually failed to manage to do so. He would cry out for different people all the time. His mother, Annie, Edward, … me. Every time he called my name, I grasped his hand and told him that I was right beside him and sometimes this helped in calming him down. Once, this lead to him getting even more agitated.
"Isobel. Isobel, no.", he cried. "Don't. Don't go. No!" When I tried to tell him that I didn't plan on going anywhere, his words interrupted me: "No. Lord Merton. No. Please… No…". One lonely tear was slowly rolling down his cheek. It broke my heart.
Furthermore, it reminded me of my husband. For the five days I had been in the hospital, I had not thought of him once. As soon as that thought entered my head it left again. There was no time to think about him now. Richard needed me. He was my priority right now.
On the seventh day, his fever finally broke. I had gotten used to his occasional waking and had started to recognise the signs. His eyelids fluttered and his breathing got heavier. This time, though, I heard a moan. This was new. Usually, he seemed to be relatively free of physical pain, at least he never gave any indication of it being otherwise. This time, though, he moaned and I gasped. He froze. In the next second, his upper body shot upright and he was sitting up in bed which caused him to groan once more, this time clearly caused by some form of pain. Startled, I shot up from my chair causing it to topple over. His head quickly turned in its direction before his eyes settled on me.
"Richard.", I breathed because for the first time in days his eyes seemed to be fully alert. I was sure, that he was fully with me in this moment.
"Hello, Isobel.", he said and it was as if those words had opened all the floodgates within me. I couldn't contain my tears. He was awake. He was consciously talking to me, recognising me. He was alive.
For a while he looked mortified before his currently raspy voice was heard again: "Don't cry, please. I can't stand it to see you cry.". Without me wanting it to, a laugh burst from my mouth. Always thinking about everybody else first. How was it possible that this amazing, beautiful, endearing man was thinking about me crying when he had seemingly just escaped death? The more I thought about it, the more I had to laugh, all the while the tears kept streaming down my face. The look on his face could only be described as puzzled and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had tilted his head sideways like a puppy who can't understand something. The thought made me smile. For the first time in days - No! Years! - I felt my face stretch into a genuine and real smile. It nearly felt unfamiliar but at the same time so very comfortable. Being here, next to him, smiling in a way that I used to consider distinctly me, enjoying life for the moment, felt like home.
"You really shouldn't be sitting up.", I finally said, because quite frankly, I couldn't think of anything else to say and because it was the first thing that came to my mind other than the feeling of complete belongingness that had engulfed me.
If it were possible, he would have looked even more confused. And while I sat there, I mentally told Death that he would not get him. Not if I had anything to say about it. He would not get him. Not now, not ever. This thought made me suddenly throw my arms around his shoulders and hug him. For a second, he froze. After a while, I felt his arms encircle me and heard him inhale deeply before laying his cheek on the top of my head.
Soon, I felt him starting to smile, too.
TBC! Definitely! The question is always when I'll continue writing. Reviews do help in motivating me to write faster and more frequently, though. So... Leave me a review?