She walks aimlessly around corners and walls, looking for somewhere anywhere, a point where it is dark and quiet. A refuge in the storm that has consumed her life. She eventually turns down a narrow corridor at the end of a ward, dimly lit with a laundry room just off to the side. She leans against the cool wall at the back, angled so no one can see her as they pass and slowly slides down. She pulls her legs up to her chest and rests her hands on her knees. She just needs a minute to breathe. With her eyes shut, fists pressed against them and only the dim muffled sounds of the hospital reaching her, she can almost pretend she is back at home. Footsteps break her out of the calm, and she eyes the feet of her personal agent Angela. She is thankfully silent and sits down against the opposite wall, holding out a paper cup of steaming coffee. She grips the hot liquid gratefully, sipping a little before resuming her previous position. Part of her hates that she is never alone anymore, well for most of the time. She often wonders how her Mom copes with the constant shadows. The question lodges painfully in the back of her throat and she prays she will actually get to ask it. She is sure she must look pretty pathetic at this point, huddled in a corner like a child hiding from the monsters.
She has never considered until now how empty of regular people hospitals are. Sure, the emergency room is chaos but up here, it's either patients or medical staff. Regular foot traffic is limited, and she is glad of it. The noises of machines are more constant and other ones she tries not to focus too hard on, in many ways it's like being in a parallel world of the living dead.
She itches the side of her head and then tugs her hair slightly from the gap between her face and her knees. She gets her engagement ring caught in her hair and she sighs. Twisting it off her finger and out of it feels like three-dimensional chess. She should call Dimitri but part of her doesn't want him here in the middle of all of this, it feels too personal, too fragile. She knows that isn't fair but this, the five of them is sacred and perhaps by having him here she will actually have to face the next step.
And it's coming.
When she walked into her Moms hospital room this morning after a night spent mainly starring at the hotel's overly fancy ceiling, she found two broken parents. She expected it but it is not the same thing as actually seeing it. Yesterday she had convinced her Dad is take a break, which consisted of Blake dragging him back to the hotel. He had been a mess then but it's as if each hour is slowly draining the life out of him. Every time she meets his eyes, they look more clouded and duller.
This will destroy them both.
The Doctors came to see them this morning and she watched her Dad's shoulders slump at their presence and his knuckle-whiten. She noticed the way he can't or won't hear what the Doctors say. They had wanted to discuss a DNR. Those three letters sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and she had felt dizzy and nauseous. Alison looked like she might faint, and she hadn't been brave enough to look at Jason. It was brutal. It fractured them all into the wind. Each seeking solitude from the unthinkable.
And so, she is here, hiding in a corner, blocking out the world, rocking like a baby. Part of her thinks she should go and find the others. Be the parent their father can't be right now. A more selfish part just wants to hide and cry. She can't do this. Doesn't want to. Won't. Who is she kidding, eventually she will end up having to be the strong one when it all comes crashing down.
The floor is getting cold and it's starting to seep into her bones, it's a strange contrast between that and the hospital humidity. She shifts slightly and the rest of her body feels numb like it belongs to someone else. She blinks without seeing. Swallows without breathing.
She can't die.
It wasn't part of the plan.
It's not fair.
She laughs hysterically at that, briefly before muffling the sound against her hands. Angela looks at her worriedly and she feels like an unruly five-year-old rebelling against eating vegetables.
She is not sure her Father will survive this. Not if…
She can't think the unthinkable again, each time it leaves a scar on her physic. They are a unit. Even on the bad days, when they are fighting, they gravitate to each other, locked in synchronous orbits. Their love shinning through the harsh hushed words and the pain. She aches for him. For what comes next. What might come next, she corrects herself. For the decisions only he can make. For the ones, he will have no choice in. For the potentially unwinnable fight.
She's breathing on her own.
There is not much else to hold on to.
They refused to sign the DNR.
She wonders how much one body can take.
How hard can one soul flight?
Her Dad believes in the thereafter. She is not so sure. She liked Church as a child, mainly because it got her out of chores and smelt funny. She is not so sure about her Mom. The only thing she is sure her Mom believes in is her Dad, she wonders if that will be enough.
It has to be.